Marginalization and Social Welfare in China

Marginalization and social welfare in China The provision of welfare in China is little known or understood outside of ...

Author: Linda Wong

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Marginalization and social welfare in China The provision of welfare in China is little known or understood outside of that country. The main recipients are those unable to work, the poverty-stricken, disaster victims, the disabled, etc. If social welfare stands as a nation’s expression of compassion for the weaker members of society, should the social treatment of such groups be more generous under socialism than in market economies? Marginalization and social welfare in China examines how those claiming benefits fare under the existing care arrangements and is structured around four main issues: • What are the characteristics of this system with regard to state policy, philosophical values, delivery systems and funding? • What determines the system’s shape and scope? • What are the past and current challenges? • What is the theoretical relevance of the Chinese experience? Linda Wong concludes that most claimants are denied the respect and help that is due to them and that many of the existing welfare values will be faced with ever greater challenges by the process of reform. This book provides a systematic analysis that defines and accounts for the contours and operation of China’s welfare system. It is underpinned by recent empirical research and strong comparative theory, and will be welcomed as a significant advance in furthering our understanding of social welfare in China. Linda Wong is Associate Professor in the Department of Public and Social Administration at the City University of Hong Kong. She is co-editor with Stewart MacPherson of Social Change and Social Policy in Contemporary China, and has written on social welfare, social insurance, migration and employment issues in China under reform.

Books published under the joint imprint of LSE/Routledge are works of high academic merit approved by the Publications Committee of the London School of Economics and Political Science. These publications are drawn from the wide range of academic studies in the social sciences for which the LSE has an international reputation.

Marginalization and social welfare in China Linda Wong

London and New York

First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy copy of this or any of taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of ebooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1998 Linda Wong All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Wong, Linda L. Marginalization and social welfare in China/Linda Wong. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Public welfare-China. 2. China-Social policy. I. Title. HV418.W65 1998 361.951–dc21 97–25913 CIP ISBN 0-203-98299-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-13312-2 (Print Edition)

For Siu-lun and Yu

Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

List of tables and figure Foreword Preface

viii ix xiii

Chinese socialism and social welfare The culture of welfare: the pre-revolutionary legacy Social welfare in the first three decades The new welfare challenge Welfare for veterans and peasants Urban welfare and mutual aid The role of the state Utilitarian Chinese familism The collective canopy Conclusion

1 21 38 55 76 104 126 147 168 190

Bibliography Index

199 222

Tables and figure

3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 9.1 9.2 5.1

Civil affairs expenditure, 1950–80 Civil affairs expenditure in different periods, 1950–80 Social welfare institutions, 1979–95 Social welfare enterprises, 1981–95 Grants and subsidies from communities, 1979–95 State and community spending on welfare and relief, 1985–95 Self-paying residents in CAD-run institutions, 1979–95 Preferential treatment targets, state relief and community aid, 1979–95 Regular relief for dependants of martyrs and deceased personnel, 1985–95 Standard scales for the relief of disabled military workers, 1988–94 Institutions for disabled soliders and veterans, 1978–95 Average annual living expenditure per resident in soldiers’ and veterans’ institutions, 1979–94 Beneficiaries of relief from the state, 1979–95 The ‘five guarantees’ scheme, 1985–95 Old age homes run by rural communities, 1979–95 The rural welfare programme, 1994 and 1995 Residential home care, 1995 Annual per capita living expenses in institutions, 1990 and 1994 Urban relief, 1995 State relief programmes, 1979–95 Civil affairs expenditure, 1979–95 State welfare expenditure, 1979–95 Selected spending of government, 1979–95 Total state subsidies to enterprises and price subsidies, 1979–95 Overall price indices, 1978–95 Social insurance and welfare funds, 1978–95 Social insurance and welfare funds for retired and resigned workers, 1978–95 Regional cooperation in poverty alleviation, 1996

51 53 65 65 69 70 71 77 78 79 82 83 87 89 90 102 107 107 113 131 137 138 140 141 143 176 177 98

Foreword Dr Linda Wong’s study of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs is a major work of social policy scholarship. It is far more than a description of the development of a central government department. Dr Wong sets her enquiry within the broad and diverse context of Chinese society and culture and explores the interplay between the formal and informal dimensions of its welfare institutions during a period of momentous social change. In the course of her research, Dr Wong has uncovered a wealth of new historical evidence regarding the development of Chinese social policy. She presents this material with commendable style and clarity. She goes on to analyse and interpret her findings with perspicacity and imagination. Marginalization and Social Welfare in China will stand as a definitive and highly original contribution to the comparative study of social policy. It offers new insights into the distinctive characteristics of Chinese welfare institutions. It also challenges many of the old assumptions that have informed and shaped the work of Western social policy theories and model-builders. The academic study of welfare institutions began in Western Europe and the USA. It started, however, as a distinctively British enterprise with the path-breaking poverty surveys of Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree and the great historical and institutional studies of Sidney and Beatrice Webb. This tradition of empirical enquiry and policy prescription continued to develop throughout the inter-war years. The main proposals of the Beveridge Report of 1942 were informed and influenced by the findings of these earlier investigations. The subsequent implementation of Beveridge’s proposals laid down the institutional foundations of the post-war British welfare state. Thereafter, an influential cadre of social policy analysts, notably Richard Titmuss, T.S. Simey and T.H.Marshall, David Donnison, Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend created the intellectual framework within which the new discipline of social policy and administration developed throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the leading scholars of this time were collectivist or socialistic in outlook. The dominant normative approach to the study of social welfare during this period is exemplified in the writings of Richard Titmuss. It was an approach in which the growth of statutory social services from residual to institutional significance was interpreted as a development synonymous with moral progress. The Beveridge-inspired reforms of 1944– 48 were conceptualized as both a political watershed and a paradigm of moral excellence against which all other welfare and other institutional arrangements were measured, judged and usually found to be wanting. By the late 1960s this essentially ethno-centric approach to the study of social policy was opening up to broader comparative perspectives. A younger generation of scholars, both in Britain and abroad, were becoming more aware of the diversity of welfare states that were emerging in other European nations. In the field of development studies other

policy analysts were beginning to question the relevance of Western-based models to the welfare needs of Third World nations. From the 1970s onwards the centre-left collectivists and institutional assumptions that had underpinned the British post-war consensus about the ends and means of social policy were coming under increasing attack from libertarian critics of the New Left and liberal critics of an emergent New Right. The impact and influence of the New Left was superficial and short lived. The emergence of the New Right, however, coincided with the election of conservative governments in Britain and the USA which were committed to reducing the role of the state in both economic and social affairs. Mrs Thatcher formed her first administration in 1979—less than five years after the international oil crisis had checked the progress of continuous economic growth and its related levels of welfare expenditure. This coincidence of financial necessity and renewed ideological conviction triggered a new debate about the future of collective welfare in the West. Since then the ideological centre of political gravity in the debate about welfare ends and means has shifted away from a collectivist and institutional consensus to a more diverse spread of pluralist models in which the state is but one part, and not necessarily the major part, in different kinds of mixed welfare economies. These political developments have given a further stimulus to comparative welfare research and model-building. In the West, there is now a far greater interest than ever before in the welfare systems of Japan and the other industrial nations of the AsianPacific rim. The trend towards the globalization of the world’s financial markets has given rise to the thesis that the institutional differences that are traditionally grounded in distinct forms of national sovereignty and culture are becoming less important than the universal economic imperatives which are making for greater uniformity. These developments have been parallelled in the field of social policy. In recent years priorities of comparative research have been shaped by the search for models which have explanatory powers of a universal order. They highlight policy trends towards normative convergence rather than divergence and towards institutional similarity rather than difference. Nevertheless, it is by no means inevitable that the trend towards economic globalization will eventually wipe out the authentic elements of national sovereignty and cultural diversity. More specifically, it cannot be assumed that economic imperatives are now so universal and powerful in character that the ends and means of social policy will become completely subservient to them. The pursuit of competitive advantage, profitability and wealth are all laudable objectives but they are not the exclusive concerns of sovereign states or the enterprise of politics. All nations, including their leaders and their subjects, are ultimately concerned with ensuring their survival and continuance—and this is particularly the case during periods of radical and rapid social change. At such times, the maintenance of social order and solidarity become matters of overriding importance. The relationship between socialism and social welfare is a symbiotic one—there can be no welfare without order and there can be no continuing order without some minimal guarantee of welfare. Dr Wong’s study of Chinese social welfare goes to the very heart of these issues. She begins her enquiry with a tentative hypothesis about the significance of cultural variables which she proceeds to test against the empirical, historical and institutional evidence as

she collects it. In her approach, the culture of welfare includes those ‘values which influence people’s notions of obligation and entitlement, and the conventions through which these notions find practical expression’. It is these cultural variables, she argues, that give distinctive character, to both the formal and informal dimensions of welfare systems and account in large part for their differences. These differences, she claims, are more important and interesting than the similarities. The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, as described by Dr Wong, bears little or no resemblance to the ideal types of ‘structural’ welfare provision which Western model-builders have equated with state socialism. The Ministry’s responsibilities have always been limited to providing services of a very minimal kind to the very poorest members of Chinese society. Assistance is restricted to homeless elders, ‘hardship households’, dependants of soldiers and revolutionary ‘martyrs’, disaster victims and the disabled. The help given is ‘discretionary, stingy and tainted with stigma’. China has never had the resources needed to finance a comprehensive system of statutory services at either central or local levels of provision. Until recently, only urban residents and their families received any degree of preferential treatment. The great mass of Chinese rural residents, constituting 75 per cent of the population, were left outside the provision of the central government. In times of need they looked to more immediate networks of support based on their farm collectives and their families. As Dr Wong points out, ‘In China, goods and services channelled through the unit of production—the collective—are of paramount importance.’ Within these local collectives and communes the egalitarian values of socialism remain paramount. Dr Wong describes how the new policies of marketization and decentralization are stripping away parts of the institutional fabric of the old ‘collective canopy’ of Chinese socialism. As a consequence, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider and the evidence of extreme poverty is becoming more evident. This process of polarization is creating a sharper division between living standards in the cities and the countryside. Dr Wong identifies a number of factors which, in her view, account for the residual and conservative character of China’s statutory system of welfare. First, the imperative claims of economic development have led the Chinese government to give priority to the welfare needs of productive workers over those of non-productive citizens. Second, the traditional values of self-help, self-denial, frugality and kinship obligation which characterize the ‘utilitarian familism’ of Chinese society have survived five decades of political and ideological change. The Chinese government has consequently been able to transfer more welfare responsibilities to the informal networks of mutual aid based on the extended family. As Dr Wong concludes ‘This historical legacy appealed to a leadership anxious to deter mass dependency—family duty becomes the sacred cow eagerly milked by an economizing state.’ Third, the network of collective agencies is still ubiquitous in Chinese society and ‘as agencies of production, distribution and political control’ these work units continue to ‘dominate civil life’. As the central government sheds more and more of its welfare function, it transfers some of them to these collective agencies. China’s version of socialism, Dr Wong contends, has never fitted neatly into any Western welfare state typologies. Political control remains, as it has always been, highly centralized and under party direction. The Chinese state has never had the resources

needed to develop an institutional system of statutory social services. The Chinese approach to social welfare has always been pluralist rather than unitary in character. A residual statutory sector at the centre has been complemented by a far more extensive network of formal and informal services based on kinship and local collective agencies. As the pace of marketization and decentralization intensifies, the Chinese welfare system is becoming more pluralist. The component elements of this new mixed economy of welfare remain, however, uniquely Chinese in character. The traditional values and practices of utilitarian familism make up one of its distinctive cultural elements. The egalitarian values and practices of the Chinese socialist collective make up the other main component. In summary, Dr Wong concludes that the institutional character of Chinese socialism and social welfare has never fitted into any Western typology or model. For the same cultural reasons the newly emergent forms of Chinese pluralism are quite different from those of the Western mixed economics of welfare. The central state, through the agencies of the party, retains absolute political control. A great experiment in running a command economy has failed. The role of government in welfare was always a residual one and in future an even greater reliance must be placed on the family and the collective than in the past. It remains to be seen whether or not these new institutional arrangements will be sufficiently flexible and effective to cope with the stresses and social dislocations that are intrinsic to the processes of economic marketization. Much will depend on the extent to which a degree of complementarity is achieved between the competitive ethos of the market, the utilitarian values of the Chinese family and the egalitarian values of Chinese socialism. Clearly, any new framework of social solidarity will have to be built on these diverse institutional elements. The old Middle Kingdom is already launched on the task of building its own distinctively Chinese middle way. This highly original study will be an essential text for students seeking to understand the recent history of Chinese social policy, and the complex processes of interaction between its formal and informal institutional dimensions and its diversity of cultural traditions. Dr Wong draws on the best traditions of Western scholarship but adds a distinctively Chinese perspective to the comparative study of social policy. In future, the formulators of analytic models and explanatory theories will have to be more modestly pluralist in their approaches. The years of Western intellectual hegemony in these scholarly enterprises have ended. Robert Pinker Emeritus Professor of Social Administration London School of Economics and Political Science March 1997

Preface This book grows out of my dissertation ‘Social Welfare Under Chinese Socialism—A Case Study of the Ministry of Civil Affairs’ submitted five years ago to the London School of Economics and Political Science. The story of social welfare in the world’s most populous country is important in itself. It is also not much known outside China. Even people who have some knowledge about the country equate social welfare with what enterprises do for Chinese workers and their families. Other works have examined the business of civil affairs agencies, like disaster relief, orphanages, ‘the five guarantees’, here and there. However, this narrow welfare system is more complex and less coherent than people realize. It has an importance to the well-being of many many people in China and to the future of the country. I am grateful to my teacher Professor Robert Pinker, and to professional colleagues, for encouraging me to write a book about the subject. That I have dithered remains my fault. Yet the more I ponder on this exotic biography and the deeper I reflect on my earlier work, the more convinced I become of not only the need to update the facts but to examine their inner logic. I hope the book goes some way in shedding light on the key questions. I have used two major methods in researching on the book. Intensive and extensive literature review of indigenous materials and external sources has been the most useful. Second, I have conducted many trips to China to collect data, interview officials and scholars, and observe how services operate on the ground. The most intensive field activities took place in 1988 when I toured Guangdong province and visited virtually every type of welfare programme at provincial, city, county, township, village and street levels. I have also completed two small surveys on welfare homes and welfare institutions. Such data have not been presented as a regional snapshot. The more I travelled, read and exchanged views with Chinese colleagues, the more convinced I am that the Guangdong developments were in line with the national picture. This is not to deny the value of a regional perspective. I have published some of my observations (on the case of the Pearl River Delta) elsewhere. For space reasons however, adding another chapter is not possible. My field trips have continued throughout the years. From the late 1980s onwards, I have visited Guangdong, in particular Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta counties, many times, as well as cities like Beijing (almost every year), Shanghai, Xiamen, Hangzhou and Shenyang. Attendance in conferences also gives me the chance to collect information from other parts of China and talk to civil affairs cadres working in many places. I believe my analysis of national trends and problems is accurate in the main. In the course of my visits, welfare cadres and researchers have given me a lot of help. The debt I owed to civil affairs bureaux in Guangdong is particularly great. Much as the book gives the impression that welfare work in China is inadequate, such views are not meant as a criticism on their efforts but, rather, on the many constraints—ideological, material, authority and structural—that they are facing. Social welfare is not the business

of certain agencies and groups of people. It is an intimate part of the endeavour and experience of a society. As Hong Kong gets ready to become part of China, I hope this work will contribute to a greater understanding of the country and its many challenges. Linda Wong City University of Hong Kong, March 1997

1 Chinese socialism and social welfare THE NARROW WELFARE SYSTEM IN CONTEXT This book is about social welfare for marginal groups in Chinese socialist society. By marginal groups are meant individuals who are excluded from participation in the social life of the community. Their ranks include people who are unable to work, individuals who have no family, households stricken with poverty, persons who need help to overcome temporary hardships (due to natural disasters or military service), the mentally and physically disabled, and all those who lack the skill for unassisted survival. The job of helping these groups rests with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the local community groups it supervises. This structure of aid is distinct from the wider system of income, social security, goods, services and life guarantees available to working people in China. Relating to China’s broad social welfare system, for instance social security and workbased welfare packages, quite a lot has been written. Meanwhile, comparatively fewer accounts on support targeted at her dependent and needy citizens are on offer. And yet in a socialist society these are the very persons whose treatment best reflects the society’s compassion and solidarity. In market economies which extol merit, competitiveness and success, such persons are often treated with contempt. Socialists’ values are supposedly different. Their claim to moral supremacy is premised on their abiding commitment to equality and fraternity. The possession of poverty, handicap and other personal misfortunes are not grounds for denying respect and communal membership. Indeed the worth of human beings cannot be measured by their economic values. The ultimate goal for social distribution is allocation according to need, rather than merit and ability. Thus a study of the social treatment of dependent groups in Chinese society is important in moral terms. By finding out the extent to which marginal citizens enjoy the social rights of citizenship, the current study will shed light on how far socialist morals are honoured by the state and society. Glazer, an American social policy theorist, calls the system of contributory and as-ofright services and benefits for the general population Welfare I. Wide public endorsement always protects them from the shifting preferences of politicians, party politics and changing administrations (Glazer 1986). He reserves the term Welfare II to denote the structure of selective, remedial and oftentimes means-tested services. Enjoying less public support from tax-payers who resent such services as a welfare burden, help is often given grudgingly and the relevant programmes are constantly subject to criticism and budget cuts. Following this classification, the current study is concerned with Welfare II under Chinese socialism. Serious research on narrowly conceived welfare— what it is, how it functions, what determines its scope, and how it responds to social and economic change—is conspicuously lacking. This book hopefully sheds light onto this neglected social reality.

Marginalization and social welfare in China

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Civil affairs welfare is more than aid to needy groups. In terms of entitlement to social welfare, the 75 per cent of Chinese citizens who live in rural areas also suffer from marginality. While urban residents have recourse to a large range of state and employersupplied benefits, social provisions in the hinterland are meagre and mean. Hence, in welfare terms, peasants and the motley crowd of unfortunate and displaced persons are similarly disadvantaged. The Ministry’s oversight of rural welfare had a long history. Since the 1950s, the Ministry, then known as the Ministry of Internal Affairs, had the remit for natural disaster relief and social relief. In the days of collective agriculture, communes and their subordinate production brigades and teams had to finance and administer their welfare projects, just as they did for organizing production, investment and governance. State aid, however, was limited to places too poor to carry out their duties. When household contracting replaced collective farming in the early 1980s, new welfare schemes were needed to replace the protective shield previously in existence. One experiment was a programme of loans with the objective of helping poor peasants embark on production projects when the Ministry realized that relief grants would never be enough to fight poverty. Another was the promotion of peasant credit unions and welfare fund collections to finance welfare undertakings. These funding schemes were intended to pool local resources and use them more effectively. Gradually, as the rural economy gained strength, the Ministry pushed for the creation of welfare services in townships and villages. In the more affluent places, rural pension schemes were instigated. By the end of the last decade, civil affairs has become a de facto Ministry of rural social security. Notwithstanding these efforts, a near vacuum of social security and low standard of services remain the hallmarks of the rural welfare system. In welfare matters, China follows the approach of ‘one country, separate systems’. Instead of having one system that applies equally to every citizen, many different systems prevail. These build on varying membership criteria. They are also distinquished by different range and levels of entitlement. There are at least four main criteria that govern who should come under which system: place of residence, employment status, family status, and personal characteristics. The first criterion divides the citizenry into urban residents (20–25 per cent of the total population) and the rural population (the rest). By dint of the household registration regulation in force since 1958, change of residential status was virtually impossible. The primary aim was to prevent influx of the rural population into urban areas. As far as employment status was concerned, whether one was working or not working was utterly important. Urban employees were looked after by their work units while rural folks previously came under the care of communes and now regain freedom in taking up household production or any other economic pursuits. The type of enterprise one works in affects one’s treatment to a large extent. Enterprises in public ownership (state-owned and collective-owned) offer more job security and occupational benefits. The private sector and rural enterprises supply none of these, or very much less. The third criterion, family membership, was and still is the most important determinant of individual well-being. Most individuals obtain their material, emotional, physical care and social needs in the family. As far as civil affairs services were concerned, only persons who do not have a family, for example childless elders and orphans, and have no work or income, qualify. Finally, personal situations like disability,

Chinese socialism and social welfare

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infirmity, poverty or individual problems are pertinent. Special services cater to different needs and problems. Yet aid is often subject to the discretion of the local masses and officials. In operational terms, the most important factors affecting welfare entitlements are work and residence. The broadest system of welfare covers citizens who participate in production, essentially the vast majority of the country’s population. This system is by no means uniform. There are at least two tiers in the edifice—an upper deck for urban workers and state employees and a lower floor for the peasantry. Under the planned economy, both urban and rural residents enjoyed an equitable share of food (grain for urbanites was subsidized by the state), guaranteed income, a measure of employment security, and sundry goods and amenities. Material conditions at the upper deck are more enviable. None the less, the Chinese peasantry had recourse to basic life guarantees not available to peasants in other developing societies. Such provisions as food grain, schools, clinics and relief for the destitute were available from people’s communes, brigades and teams. The situation becomes more complex with the push towards market reform. The rural economy has been transformed into a cash nexus economy geared to production for market consumption rather than compulsory quotas set by the state. The urban system is less radically affected. Nevertheless, both in cities and in villages, the trends are towards less state and collective guarantees, more diversified channels of provision, higher dependence on community and family contributions, and heightened insecurity. The rural-urban or peasant-worker schism remains largely intact. Another development was increased mobility. Since the mid-1980s, an increasing number of peasant migrants, between 80 to 100 million, have sought work and business opportunities in urban areas. Nevertheless, they still carry their rural status and do not qualify for urban welfare. Further down the welfare scale is the place of civil affairs welfare and relief. Eligibility to services is stringently controlled. This secondary system serves only persons excluded by the wider welfare system. The assistance provided at best caters to subsistence standards. Recipients suffer from strong social stigma. Under the planned economy, the production of welfare involved at least four major players: the family, the production unit, the neighbourhood and the state. The welfare nexus in China operated as a tiered system. The family was of course the innermost core. The support provided at this level was entirely privatized. Nevetheless the family was the first line of defence against want and insecurity. Its contribution to individual well-being was paramount wherever one lived. After the reform commenced, however, the family was even more crucial in determining life chances while it enjoyed less support from other social agencies. Beyond the family, the entitlement of rural and urban citizens diverged. In city areas, the second line of defence was the work unit which supplied the employee and his/her dependants with the bulk of his/her income and service needs. Smaller and poorer work units were usually not self-sufficient in terms of employee facilities. Similarly, people who were out of work, for example the retired and housewives, had to look for help from the next tier—neighbourhood-run programmes. Only when even local schemes failed, or when the person could not get help anywhere else, would civil affairs aid be invoked. In the villages, communes and brigades used to provide a cushion of collective protection. Now, social programmes are run and funded by townships and villages. The agency of last resort was civil affairs, which restricted aid


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to people who could not get help from family and local community. Analytically, the urban welfare nexus was a four-tier structure—family, work unit, neighbourhood, state; in the countryside, the aid hierarchy had three layers: family, community and state. This basic pattern remains largely intact under the reform. The economic reform has altered economic and social life to an unprecedented extent. As far as social care is concerned, new producers made their debut. One channel of production is voluntary organizations. Under a more tolerant ideological climate, voluntary agencies of many colours—local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), native charities, religious groups, international agencies—have begun to offer a variety of social services banned since the early 1950s. Programmes include schools, clinics, rural development projects, child care and rehabilitation services. The impact made by these bodies is limited in the main but is expected to increase. The other budding supplier is the market. Private schools, nurseries, hospitals, even nursing homes have quietly emerged. Though in their infancy, commercial services are likely to grow when more people become rich and demanding enough to afford them. In the field of special welfare, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has actively promoted multiple sources of aid under the slogan of ‘socializing social welfare responsibilities’. I have argued elsewhere that Chinese-style socialization is another form of privatization (Wong 1994a). The state is in clear retreat: its role in provision, funding and regulation of social care is being curtailed. Privatization in whatever name belies a redrawing of boundary between state and civil society. The book is built around a number of central themes. First, what are the characteristics of the narrow welfare system? To answer this question takes us into an examination of the relevant policy, philosophical underpinnings, delivery systems and funding of civil affairs welfare. Secondly, what determines its shape and boundary? In locating the determinants of welfare, I shall argue that welfare is shaped by four mutually reinforcing forces—the traditional legacy, the role of the state, utilitarian Chinese familism, and China’s socialist system, principally its collective institutions. Third, what are the challenges to this system and how does it respond to the new exigencies of the reform? To elucidate this concern, I shall examine the welfare reforms undertaken so far and comment on their outcomes. In corollary the emerging issues of value conflict, discrimination, spatial inequality, stratification and social instability will be analysed. Finally, the theoretical relevance of China’s welfare experience will be summarized. The evidence so far suggests a refutation of a straightforward transposition of Western or socialist theory. China is too big and complex a society to adopt a uniform system to meet the need of development and its huge social obligations. The welfare system that evolves is necessarily a mixed system marked by internal inconsistency and tension. The ultimate shape is still unclear as the country lurches forward to an uneasy amalgam of socialism and market economy.

RESEARCH ON CHINESE SOCIAL WELFARE The study of Chinese social welfare is a like a fallow field against the rich pickings of Sinology. Most China experts—anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists—have little interest in welfare matters. Until the recent past, welfare issues


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warranted no more than a chapter in a book or a few odd articles. Examples of the first kind are Whyte and Parish’s Urban Life in Contemporary China (1984) and Village and Family in Contemporary China (1978), Sidel and Sidel’s The Health of China (1982) and Davis-Friedmann’s Long Lives—Chinese Elderly and the Communist Revolution (1983). Early work in article form include Kallgren’s report on the labour insurance scheme in its inception years (Kallgren 1969) and Davis-Friedmann’s analysis of the ‘five guarantees’ scheme (Davis-Friedmann 1978). The definitive work on the way Chinese work units function as agencies of production, administration and welfare is Walder’s Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (1986). Researchers like Croll (1987), Feuchtwang (1987), Hussain (1989), Hussain and Feuchtwang (1988) and Hussain and Liu (1989) have commented on the problems of social security and poverty in the countryside. On urban welfare, Davis argued that despite recent reforms in labour insurance, what emerged was even more inequality in occupational entitlement (1988). But on the whole, the record of social policy in forty years of socialism was quite creditable (Davis 1989). In the 1980s, a number of books appeared which focus directly on social welfare. The first is Dixon’s The Chinese Social Welfare System 1949–1979. Published in 1981, this is the first book in English to provide a wealth of data on services and practices under the reign of Mao. A second report, Wong and MacQuarrie’s China’s Welfare System: A View from Guangzhou (1986) examines welfare services in Guangzhou during the early reform years. In light of rapid changes in China today, both works now appear dated. A third book, Chow’s The Administration and Financing of Social Security in China (1988) summarizes the key elements in the administration and funding of social security for the urban workforce. The need for reform and the major orientations are linked to transformations of the economic and employment systems, and to demographic changes as well as problems of organization and affordability. Works embodying deeper analytical and critical interpretations appeared only recently. Chan and Chow’s More Welfare After Economic Reform? Welfare Developments in the People’s Republic of China (1992) offers a longitudinal and theoretical overview of developments in welfare. The authors delineate three stages of growth and adaptation: (1) the pre-revolutionary stage with a residual approach marked by minimal state intervention, family care and private charities, (2) the period of socialist construction featuring structural arrangements to effect redistribution as well as pragmatic adherence to traditional family care, (3) the period of reform marked by a relaxation of state monopoly on welfare provision towards shared responsibility and community care. The point about a reversal from ‘the normative institutional welfare delivery to a residual structure’ is well taken. Nevertheless, the three stages are rather crude and sweeping. In particular, the conception of the Chinese ‘welfare model’ or ‘system’ suggests a conceptual uniformity which has little empirical meaning. In real life, China has many systems and structures of welfare built on different allocative principles and status hierarchies. In The Myth of Neighbourhood Mutual Help—The Contemporary Chinese CommunityBased Welfare System in Guangzhou (Chan 1993), Chan reviews the policy and practice of having urban neighbourhood organizations provide social care to local residents. The author is right to point out that despite much official elation over this approach,


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community care is far from a panacea to the problem of social support in Chinese cities. Up until the early 1990s, its claims are probably more myth than reality. This is because its development is fundamentally constrained by limited state support, scarce local resources, unreliability and regional diversity. Leung and Nann’s book Authority and Benevolence—Social Welfare in China (1995) sets out to ‘provide a comprehensive account of social welfare and social services in China, and to highlight the achievements and difficulties’ (Leung and Nann 1995: xi). Social welfare in China composes of employmerit-based welfare, neighbourhood-based welfare in the urban areas, locality-based welfare in the rural areas, and the work of civil affairs. The book offers a good guide to the evolving institutional framework, social changes and policy instruments in bold outline. Nevertheless, its brevity (168 pages of main text) means that it cannot offer the many interesting details and in-depth conceptualization that is needed for a careful appraisal. In 1995, my own work, Zhongguo Shehui Zhuyi de Shehui Fuli—Minzheng Gongzuo Yanjiu [Social Welfare Under Chinese Socialism—Research on Civil Affairs Welfare] was published in China (Huang Li Ruolian [Wong] 1995). This is a condensed and translated version of my doctoral dissertation completed in 1992. Some of the themes developed in the original thesis have found their way to articles on selected topics (Wong 1990c, 1993, 1994a, 1995a). These early efforts are being reassessed, updated and revised for the present volume. Without exception, the works cited are written by researchers working outside China. Chow, Chan, Wong and Leung are from Hong Kong. Both MacQuarrie and Nann have worked in Hong Kong for years. The latest contribution, from an insider’s perspective, comes from Chen Sheying, a PRC scholar who completed his doctoral training in social welfare in the United States. Entitled Social Policy of the Economic State and Community Care in Chinese Culture (1996), Chen’s book may be regarded as a continuation and extension of the themes of social policy and community care explored by Chan and Chow (1992) and Chan (1993). It is also offered as a counterpoint to Western or Westernized (mainly Hong Kong) perspectives. While acknowledging welfare residualism, it leaps to its defence by positing it in the framework of ‘the economic state’. In the Chinese economic state, economic growth rather than welfare advance has always been its primary business. Neither does the country aspire to become a ‘welfare state’. Although China’s approach has an urban bias, ‘the economic state tends to speak on behalf of the very poor peasants and attend to the very fundamental issue of preventing people from starving with a radical (productive, distributive and regulative) approach to their wellbeing’ (Chen 1996:272). Despite occasional advocacy for the Chinese view, the book is strong on the theory and practice of community care and especially care for the elderly in China. Nevertheless it does not have much to say on rural welfare arrangements, nor on remedial welfare work targeted at the vulnerable and the needy. The theory of the economic state may be useful in explaining the leadership’s obsession with growth after 1978. Its applicability to the period under Mao when politics and class struggle took command is not trouble-free. In the final analysis, the programme of modernization is a political decision: to replenish the legitimacy of the regime after the debacle of the Cultural Revolution and to address popular frustration with the shortages and low standards of living under a command economy. During the course of open door and reform, preservation of stability and party-state hegemony remain paramount objectives.


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The results have been attenuation of the scope and pace of reform as soon as these goals appear under threat. From China itself, more source materials and commentaries have been published under a more open climate. Indigenous works on the subjects of labour insurance, social security and social welfare appear frequently in social science magazines and academic journals edited by leading universities and research institutes. The more prominent ones are Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Shehui Kexue, Chinese Economic Studies, and Shehui Yanjiu. Of particular importance are three Ministry of Civil Affairs publications: Zhongguo Minzheng [China Civil Affairs], Shehui Baozhang Bao [Social Security Bulletin] later renamed Zhongguo Shehui Bao [Chinese Society News], and Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo [China Social Work], previously Shehui Gongzuo Yanjiu [Social Work Studies] as well as a regional magazine Guangdong Minzheng [Guangdong Civil Affairs]. Relatively unknown overseas, these offer a wealth of useful information on social welfare. Their purview covers not only new developments, official policies and service data but also policy debates and operational problems. Among them, Zhongguo Minzheng is a monthly journal. Shehui Baozhang Bao is published twice a week. Both Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo and Guangdong Minzheng publish six issues annually. Almost all of them accept subscriptions from abroad. In addition, the civil affairs system has released many volumes of regulations, policy documents, handbooks, anthologies and statistical yearbooks. Nevertheless, access to these is rather difficult.

THE DISCOURSE ON SOCIAL WELFARE Historically, in the West, social welfare was equated with charity and provisions for the poor. This approach was based in a context of laissez-faire, individual responsibility and private philanthropy before the twentieth century. Gradually, as notions of social right and collective obligation took root, social welfare was no longer treated as despised services for the unlucky few. In most industrial nations, the end of the Second World War saw impressive gains in social protection. Together with this, the meaning of social welfare has broadened. A commonly accepted definition of social welfare sees it as ‘the organized system of social services and institutions, designed to aid individuals and groups to attain satisfying standards of life and health. It aims at personal and social relationships which permit individuals the fullest development of their capabilities and the promotion of their well-being in harmony with the needs of the community’ (Friedlander 1955:4). It also began to be used interchangeably with social policy and the welfare state (Titmuss 1968, [1958] 1969, 1974; Marshall 1975; Sleeman 1974; Mishra 1977, 1981). Traditionally, social policy is taken to mean policy regarding the social services in cash and in kind. Titmuss later extends its scope to include benefits provided under the fiscal and occupational systems, which serve similar purposes in redistributing resources and enhancing social integration (Titmuss 1963). Likewise, Townsend (1969) sees social policy as any policy that contributes to the fulfilment of socially defined objectives. Meanwhile the term ‘welfare state’ is commonly used to refer to state-protected minimum standards in education, health, income and housing on the basis of equality of


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citizenship. Later on, the concept is extended to the ways in which the welfare system operates in the context of the political economy of society (Gough 1979). Now, in Western Europe, issues of employment, wages and overall macro-economic policy are considered integral parts of the welfare state complex (Esping-Andersen 1990). In contrast, social welfare in China has a distinct connotation. The Chinese word for welfare is fuli, which translates as ‘benefits’ and is frequently aligned with relief (jiuji). Indeed, the terms ‘social welfare’ and ‘social relief are commonly used together and refer to assistance and services to vulnerable groups in society. Fragmentation in responsibility reinforces the marginal nature of welfare support. In China, jurisdiction for social welfare rests with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Meanwhile, for people at work, the concept of social insurance or labour insurance is applicable. Carrying the onus for social protection of the ‘normal’ population are at least three state organs: the Ministry of Labour, for the urban workforce; the Ministry of Personnel, for state cadres; and the Organization Department of the Communist Party, for its 57 million members (Ming Pao 14 June 1996). The Chinese use the term ‘social security’ (shehui baozhang) as an inclusive concept to cover all types of social arrangements for social care and support. An authoritative definition of social security comes from Lu Mouhua, a well-known civil affairs educator and ideologue: Socialist social security in our country generally means measures to protect and actively enhance security in the material and spiritual life of the people by the state and society. Social security, when manifested in the form of compensation for various losses and risks is social insurance; when manifested in compensation for physical handicaps, overcoming and prevention of hardships, and raising the quality of life is social welfare; when manifested in noncompensatory assistance in relation to natural disasters and poverty is social relief. In the main, social security is the total system of comprehensive protection of life for all members of society under socialism. Social insurance, social welfare and social relief are the instruments of its implementation or concrete forms. They are indispensable parts of the social security system. (Lu 1986:90; emphasis added) The above view subsumes social welfare and social relief under the broad goal of social security and is representative of government thinking as a whole (Shehui Baozhang Bao 15 May 1986, 1 April 1988; People’s Republic of China 1986a). In Western countries, the equivalent term would be social welfare. There, social security is commonly identified as an income-maintenance programme while social welfare incorporates both social services in kind (sometimes called personal social services) and transfer payments or cash benefits (Kahn 1979, Wilson and Wilson 1991:3–34). In 1994, new content was being injected into the system of social security. According to the decisions of the Third Plenary Session of the 14th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, China’s social security system now has six components: social insurance, social relief, social welfare, preferential treatment, mutual aid, and personal savings (Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 4:6). The last two were newly


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incorporated. Mutual aid refers to community services, societal donations, and all altruistic and mutual help activities. The inclusion of personal savings suggests the key role of private initiatives and individual responsibility. Among the programmes, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has responsibility for social relief, social welfare, preferential treatment, mutual aid and part of social insurance—pension schemes for rural labourers. This has enhanced the Ministry’s claim as the primary welfare bureaucracy in China (ibid.).

DETERMINANTS OF SOCIAL WELFARE: WESTERN THEORIES Insights from two traditions of social welfare are relevant to this study. The first source is the welfare state literature from Western capitalist societies; the other is from the experience of socialist states. From the West, a profusion of theories, what Castles calls ‘the battle of the paradigms’ (Castles 1978) compete to explain the rise of welfare states and the similarities and differences between them. Roughly speaking, three kinds of perspectives can be distinguished. The first mode of explanation is technological-economic in nature, the second approach centres on the importance of politics, and the third on the contribution of ideology to the development of social policy. Included in the first perspective is the industrialization thesis. This sees social welfare as an inevitable consequence of the industrialization process. The genesis of change is thought to be located in the breakthrough and proliferation of technology which produced fundamental changes in the economy. A simple mode of production based on agriculture and small-scale handicrafts gave way to an urban industrial economy dominated by the factory system and modern enterprises operating along bureaucratic lines. As a result, changes in the social structure developed, giving rise to problems like family breakdown, eclipse of communities, unemployment, neglect of the elderly, public health hazard, overcrowding and so on. Permitting social costs to lie where they fell would result in social chaos and inefficiency. Therefore, societies had to find collective solutions through large-scale social intervention, which was also made possible by vastly increased wealth under the new economic order. The most lucid account of this thesis is provided by Kerr, Dunlop, Harbeson and Myers in Industrialism and Industrial Man (1962) and Wilensky and Lebeaux’s classic work Industrial Society and Social Welfare (1965). Wilensky and Lebeaux’s conception of two models of social welfare is especially noteworthy. They distinguish between two models: the residual and the institutional. The residual model sees social welfare performing a remedial and ameliorative function for society. It comes into play when the normal channels of meeting needs, namely the family and the market, break down. In this system, the state has a minimal role while private initiatives are emphasized. Public intervention is limited, temporary and of declining importance. In the institutional conception, social welfare is taken as a normal first-line social protection system. The state has major responsibility for common welfare and commits high levels of resources to guarantee the social rights of citizens. Hence the receipt of services is free from stigma, unlike under residual welfare. In modern societies, the trend of welfare development is supposedly from residualism to institutional welfare.


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This is attributed to ‘the logic of industrialism’, which becomes so powerful that as industrial societies develop, all nations must resort to common strategies of management in order to cope with the same kinds of economic and technological imperatives. In short, industrializing societies converge, however different their starting points. This one-directional view has been discredited. It is now more acceptable to depict the welfare pattern for industrial societies as a mixed system underpinned by a major state role with various combinations of market, voluntary and informal care. Looking across different social systems, Mishra postulates that the extremes of total state control in socialist states and unremitting laissez-faire in capitalist ones will both narrow and move to the centre. This is because, under capitalism, the injustices of the market, expanding democracy and the importance of a more efficient workforce make a residual state role no longer viable; on the other hand, centralized planning and distributing systems will prove too rigid and increasingly unaffordable (Mishra 1981). Another way of interpreting the move to the middle way is for capitalist societies to adopt some of the collectivist features of socialist states and for command economies to inject free market and pluralist features into their welfare system. There are strong indications that such a trend has been gathering force in Eastern Europe since the mid1980s (Deacon 1990). According to Pinker (1991a), this may not mean the end of ideology as prophesied by Bell (1960). Rather, it is more accurate to talk about a growing disenchantment with classical political economy in its purest competitive liberal form and the Marxist tradition of class struggle and complete state domination (ibid.). Both the industrialization and convergence theories are premised on the importance of technology in social change. A natural derivative is the close link between economic level and the range and generosity of welfare state provisions. To put this hypothesis to empirical test, Wilensky examined the experience of 60 nations. He found the association between economic level and social development to be statistically important (Wilensky 1975). Kohl supports this view: ‘The rapid economic growth of the recovery period after World War Two enabled Western democracies to increase public spending in almost all fields because of greater fiscal resources’ (in Flora and Heidenheimer 1981:307). This, of course, is not a surprising finding. It is, however, not an adequate explanation for the diversity in welfare arrangements found in societies with similar economic attainment. For example the United States and Japan are recognized welfare laggards. Besides, even though total spending may be broadly alike, there are substantial variations in institutional arrangements across nations. Furthermore, if attention is turned to socialist states, the discrepancy is more acute. Most countries in the Eastern bloc, except perhaps East Germany and Czechoslovakia, were technologically and economically backward; however they did have extensive provisions for social care. Surely this monocausal and deterministic mode of explanation is too simplistic. In short, why is there only one model of social change? Why can’t countries devise their own institutional arrangements even if they confront similar problems? The second, approach is to stress the role of politics. There are several permutations to this school of thought. One is to look at political intent in social reform. Here, the classic example is Bismarck’s introduction of social insurance to thwart the appeal of revolutionary socialism. In this case, social policy was used as a substitute for widening the basis of political authority, and not as a consequence of it (Jones 1985). Apart from


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this example, other cases are less clear cut. Indeed, the motives behind policies may not be explicitly stated and even their aims are subject to different interpretation (George and Wilding 1984). The search for political intent behind specific reforms is too piecemeal and open to dispute. An alternative means is to focus on the association between political parties and welfare policies. Following this, social scientists have investigated whether leftist parties, social democratic governments and Catholic party power are instrumental in social reform (Rimlinger 1971, Castles and McKinlay 1979, Flora and Heidenheimer 1981, Pinker 1991b). Evidence has not been emphatic. Indeed, there is at best an unreliable and fairly weak relationship between leftist dominance and extensive income transfers relative to the economy. More striking is the fact that where socialist parties and strong labour movements are more or less absent, government transfers are consistently smaller in the aggregate. (Heidenheimer et al. 1983:210) Nevertheless, even this argument is weakened by research that shows centre-right governments taking the lead in the growth of social expenditure (Alber 1983). The case of Britain is instructive. Both before and after the Second World War, substantial agreement on welfare policies existed across the major parties. It was not until the mid1970s that opinions became more sharply and overtly divided. Government hostility to high social spending notwithstanding, the conservative administrations in Britain and the United States could not embark on wholesale dismantling of the welfare state in the context of widespread public support of the social services (Johnson 1987, 1990; Jowell et al. 1989; Mishra 1990). A third permutation is to explore the relationship between state intervention and political and class conflict. This is essentially a Marxist perspective within which several approaches can be identified. First, there are those Marxists who see social welfare as gains wrested from a hostile capitalist class. For example, in accounting for the divergent developments of the welfare state in Britain and the United States, Mishra believes that the higher the proportions of labour force unionized the higher the chances that the state will assume responsibility for basic needs (Mishra 1977:105). Second, there is an alternative top-down approach which describes advances in state welfare in terms of voluntary concessions from the ruling class in order to perpetuate their power (Saville 1957). This ascribes the rise of the welfare state largely to the functional necessities of system integration (maintaining the integrity of the system) and social integration (maintaining harmony between social groups) in capitalism (Baran and Sweezy 1968). Most contemporary Marxists recognize the combined effects of both forces (Saville 1957, Domhoff 1971, Offe 1984). In relation to China, the relevance of party-state influence and political conflict will be important issues for investigation. Admittedly, the institutional patterns are not the same. In the context of its one-party polity and state dominance, how will these factors affect the choice of its welfare model? Will there be similar social tensions arising from the relentless push for modernization? Will new conflicts between groups emerge? These and


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the general question of whether social welfare there serves similar functions of system and social integration as in capitalist societies are relevant. The third category of theories attributes a leading role in welfare state development to the impact of ideology. For example, Baker’s social conscience thesis (1979) sees welfare provisions broadening as a result of a widening and deepening sense of social obligation. It is postulated that as deprivations become better known and more resources are at hand (with increased fiscalization), countries everywhere tend towards greater generosity in the social services. A parallel perspective is Marshall’s citizenship thesis (1963). This traces the spread of social welfare to the acceptance of social rights (‘a modicum of economic welfare and security’), which, together with civil and political rights, is one of the three component rights of citizenship. Social rights gained ascendancy in the present century. Initially restricted to the needy, these were later extended to the working classes and eventually to the whole population. This thesis was very influential in the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, Esping-Andersen (1990) made a key contribution to the theoretical debate by stressing the nature of states and regime types in the structure of welfare provisions in post-industrial societies. He distinguishes between three models—the liberal, corporatist-statist and social-democratic trajectories, each with its distinct forms of economic and employment management, social stratification and benefit structures. For an explanation of regime types, he looks beyond simple class mobilization to include the key role of political class coalition and historical forces. By looking at the richness of a country’s experience in depth, this mode of analysis can overcome the pitfall of overgeneralization from universal theory. Such themes offer food for thought in relation to a vast country like China. Apart from general theories, many factors have been identified as pivotal to welfare development. One is the role of demography. Here, one’s attention is drawn to impacts of declining fertility, increased ageing, the rise of divorce rates and single-parent families, which result in higher demands for social care (Room 1990). Another is bureaucratic influence. This refers to the self-interest of bureaucracies, and professionals within them, to expand programmes quite independent of need. Wilensky, for instance, finds it necessary to qualify his earlier thesis: ‘Over the long pull economic level is the root cause of welfare state development, but its effects are felt chiefly through demographic changes of the past century and the momentum of the programs themselves, once established’ (Wilensky 1975:47). Still another factor is cultural diffusion (Rys 1964). This stresses mutual exchange and learning. But the influence can also penetrate by political imposition. In this category are former colonies and states that came under Soviet dominance after the Second World War. In China, there is no evidence of a professional welfare lobby. For instance, there is no social work profession. Autonomous social service agencies have also been banned, until only recently. Yet the problems of demography, caused by the one-child population policy and rapid ageing, have become matters of national concern. Likewise, the role of diffusion via the copying of the socialist development model is of interest. The extent to which socialist strategies imprint on China and the implications on welfare will be reflected upon in the study.


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In trying to account for cross-national differences, the cultural or value dimension of social welfare merits scrutiny. Tropman (1976, 1989) considers that the backwardness of the American welfare system is due to such cultural values as individualism, problem morality, melting pot ethos, success orientation, limited government and respect for religious and ethnic diversities. Although values like protection of the weak, equality, and social right coexist, they are of secondary importance. The result, therefore, is a niggardly and fragmented system of care. Glazer’s distinction of Welfare I and Welfare II is instructive (1986). While programmes for independent individuals still expand despite the climate of stringency in the late 1970s, ‘welfare’ programmes for the dependent are in increasing disrepute. He attributes such bipolar treatment not only to cultural values but fundamental features of American society: federalism, ethnic and religious diversity, race, individualism, voluntarism and profit-making agencies in social policy. By looking at the value patterns and institutional practices, the whole culture approach gives due weight to the influence that the historical and social contexts have on welfare. The consideration of cultural factors has implications for theory. To what extent are countries examples of universal models? Or can one only treat national experience as unique? This question is addressed by Pinker (1986), who postulates the concept of ‘the culture of welfare’. In any society, the culture of welfare has two parts: values which influence people’s notion of obligation and entitlement, and the conventions through which these values find practical expression. The two components are expressed partly in formal social programmes and partly in informal services based on the affiliations of family, friendship and neighbourhood. Values primarily influence choices made in social policy whereas institutional arrangements are affected by national characteristics. After contextualizing Japan and Britain’s welfare ingredients in terms of statutory, occupational and voluntary services, he concludes that ‘comparative analysis is unlikely to reveal striking similarities between societies if the formal and informal dimensions of welfare are taken into account and both are then related to cultural variables’ (Pinker 1986). I find this concept stimulating and important. In the case of China, how relevant is the cultural legacy in shaping current practices? Can traditions blend with socialist ideology? I will address these themes in Chapter 2.

RELEVANCE OF SOCIALIST WELFARE EXPERIENCES To start with, the search for relevant theories and explanatory frameworks from practising socialism meets with many hurdles. The key problem is the dearth of publications on the subject. Language barriers and restricted contacts have compounded the difficulty of communication between East and West. Even if materials are available, the statistical and contextual data are rather deficient. Additionally, there is an absence of theory about welfare development, except in idealized forms by Mishra (1977) and Deacon (1983), which was so acknowledged by Deacon in his later work (1990, 1992, 1993). Under such conditions, one’s quest for guidance from welfare socialism is not an easy one. The Soviet Union, the first nation to go through a Marxist revolution, offers a natural starting point. A few works in English about the Russian welfare state have appeared, the


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most well-known being Madison’s Social Welfare in the Soviet Union (1968), George and Manning’s Socialism, Social Welfare and the Soviet Union (1980) and Deacon’s Social Policy and Socialism (1983). In addition, Rimlinger (1971) and Pinker (1979) have chronicled the historical evolution of Russian welfare arrangements. A model that was supposedly premised on socialist systems was developed by Mishra in 1977. Called the structural model, it identifies welfare as an integral part of the social structure. Among the more important features of this model are: total state responsibility for meeting individual needs, the domination of the need-based ideology of distribution, a comprehensive range of statutory services which cover the entire population, high level of benefits, high proportion of national income spent on state services, entitlement as of right and the social services as an expression of the basic values of society (Mishra 1977:121–49). This model is very much an ideal type. To be fair to the architect, Mishra did concede that substantial deviations from the norm exist in reality because of the backwardness of the economy. However, in the long run, he insists that the ideological imperative of need-based distribution will persist to a degree sufficient to bring services closer to the blueprint. Taking the Soviet Union as an example of the structural model, the patterns of formal social services are quite similar to Western welfare states. In 1970, it had developed nearuniversal income security, comprehensive free health care for the whole population, and free and compulsory ten-year education. The proportion of national income spent on income maintenance, health and education was 18.3 per cent as against 17.4 per cent in Britain (Mishra 1977). Meanwhile the major departures of Soviet experience from Western welfare states are the monistic role of the state, a poorly formed tax system and the near absence of a voluntary sector to augment state provisions. The most marked difference is the former’s wide resort to wage policy to reduce income inequality. The social services, meanwhile, have the effect of increasing equality and improving living standards of the majority of the population (Mishra 1977, Deacon 1983). Set against new knowledge of socialist welfare becoming available after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist states, Mishra’s structural model turns out to be a codification of socialist ideals rather than fact. None the less, from a careful analysis of Eastern experience, a number of variables stand out as important factors shaping socialist welfare systems. These include ideology, political and economic policies, the meaning of work and the enterprise, and special conditions within these societies. The Marxist ideology of distribution is buttressed by the concepts of equality and the primacy of need. Equal distribution of the social product can only come about after the private means of production have been abolished and all resources are brought under state control. In the transitional stage of socialism, due to economic backwardness and remnants of the old order, distribution is still tied to work. However, when the higher form of communism is reached, people will be rewarded according to need (Mishra 1977, George and Manning 1980, Deacon 1983). In the Soviet Union, the state was anxious to enhance its legitimacy by early implementation of egalitarian principles. Thus, immediately after the revolution, it promised comprehensive non-contributory social insurance for all, free medical care and universal education. That such promises took longer to achieve and had to leap over setbacks, notably in the Stalinist period, did not


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pervert the strength of ideology as a moulding force. Likewise, in Yugoslavia, which converted to socialism in 1945, a concern to solve the ‘social question of the working class’ came early. The promotion of general social security and welfare is a means towards this end. In the 1950s, the leadership had taken the basic steps towards establishing a welfare state: a social security system was created by central legislation, the health service was socialized, housing was nationalized, free and compulsory elementary education was extended to eight years, and child care services started to expand (Pusic 1987). It is noteworthy that these countries, when introducing extensive social security schemes, were more backward than when such programmes were adopted in market societies. In short, the ideological imperative of Marxism has been instrumental in achieving what can only be construed as ‘premature’ social development. Partly motivated by ideology and partly by strong desires to catch up with the West as soon as possible, all socialist states pursued common political and economic programmes after seizing power. The measures included land reform, nationalization of firms, heavy investment in heavy industries, and price and wage policy (Furtak 1986). They all have the aims of equalization, creating employment (and preventing unemployment), and ensuring adequate, if only basic standards of life (Ferge 1979, George and Manning 1980, Deacon 1983). The desired outcome has not been absolute equality. Because the goal has been to put production first, welfare policies were subordinate to it. Indeed Szelenyi (1978) argues that the social policy in centrally planned East European states is inherently inegalitarian in its effects. This is because with the end of markets, the distributive mechanisms are basically created and structured by the state. For example, in rationing urban housing, administrative allocation has demonstrably, albeit unknowingly, favoured bureaucrats, intellectuals and white collar workers (Szelenyi 1983). As long as some criteria have to be used in allocating scarce resources, the substitution of bureaucratic decisions for market criteria does not guarantee equality of outcome unless that goal is consciously pursued. The fusion of welfare and economics and the latter’s dominance over social policy in command societies has been recognized by many writers. For example, social security in the Soviet Union was used to enforce labour discipline and consolidate state power (Rimlinger 1971, Kallgren 1969, Dixon 1981, Walder 1986). Thus industrial workers were heavily favoured by the benefit structure. Rewards for the self-employed and collective farmers have been neglected. It was not until 1965 that the latter were brought into the scheme. The preoccupation with economic growth also resulted in high rates of investment. For example, in Yugoslavia, as late as 1976–80, the average share of investment was still 36.9 per cent of GNP (Pusic 1987). That such was possible was due to significant curtailment of consumption and infrastructural development. For the second item, Ferge estimated that in the West, two-thirds or more of all the investment served infrastructural purposes; this proportion was only around 40 per cent in the planned economy (Ferge 1987:80). With regard to social policy, the Hungarian government did not feel that an autonomous social policy was needed since the egalitarian framework of the command economy and rising affluence would solve all social problems (Ferge 1979, 1987). Such a view is of course consistent with the Marxist tenet of ‘basis’ determining ‘superstructure’. As long as full employment prevails, there will be adequate protection for all. Not surprisingly public assistance and welfare services for special groups were not


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taken too kindly. If available, these were only granted to those who had no working ability or family support. Recipients of special welfare suffered from the stigma of dependence (George and Manning 1980, Pusic 1987, Ferge 1987). Under socialism, work is of paramount importance. Man has a right and a duty to work. To reward someone who has made no input to production is to encourage dependency and idleness. Hence, welfare benefits have to be earned through labour and the state assigns an important welfare role to enterprises. Sik and Svetlik (1988) gave two reasons for the state’s interest in direct provision of services by enterprises. First, it allows the state to omit some responsibilities, to promote the idea of collectivism on a lower (quasi-community) level and to simplify the welfare system. Second, enterprise welfare serves as a means of labour competition under conditions of full employment. Taken together, universal social services by the state and welfare support from employers are assumed to meet all human needs. Finally, the effects of common characteristics of socialist societies. Despite Marx’s dictum that the overthrow of the old regime will take place under advanced capitalism, most states were economically backward at the time of the revolution. Their economies were typified by the dominance of agriculture and relatively small industrial and service sectors (Ferge 1987). Two outcomes followed from these conditions. One was the relative scarcity of economic resources for social consumption. For example, in the Soviet Union, continuing economic stagnation has caused the Stalinist reversion from utopian egalitarian social policy to one that was firmly tied to occupational award to stimulate production (Mishra 1977). This was also true in Eastern Europe. It came as no surprise that financial stringency would pervert the goals of equality and adequacy. Thus, Pusic, writing about Yugoslavia, was to observe that ‘the essential problem of the welfare state everywhere seems to be that its economic cost is increasing beyond its fiscal capability’ (Pusic 1987). Again, this is a familiar experience elsewhere. Since the 1980s, a growing body of English works from Eastern bloc writers has enriched our understanding of the realities of social life and social policies under state socialism. The authors include Ferge (1979, 1987, 1990), Sik (1988), Szelenyi (1978, 1983) and Szalai (1990) from Hungary, Svetlik (1988, 1990) of Yugoslavia, and Jarosz (1987) and Ksiezopolski (1987, 1990) from Poland. Written on the eve of the collapse of communist regimes, the reports collude to provide corrective snapshots of former idealized accounts of social care. Among the problems that have been chronic features of welfare under socialism are hidden unemployment, severe shortages (of housing, hospital beds, drugs, residential services), poor quality of amenities, wide use of bribes to secure treatment, privileges of party-state elites, and discrimination against minorities (Ferge 1990, Deacon and Szalai 1990). Writing in 1989, Szalai sums up the malaise and popular perceptions as follows: What social policy today gives its subjects are the many irritating, humiliating and painful experiences of unfairness, defencelessness and chronic shortage. Social policy has come to be associated with widely unsatisfied needs, of unacceptable bureaucratic regulations, of haphazard provision of services at more and more unacceptable levels. (Deacon and Szalai 1990:92)


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In the 1990s, the stream of publications from Eastern Europe has continued (Schweitzer 1990, Offe 1993, Ferge and Kolberg 1992, de Swann 1994). The central themes surround the deep transformations of the institutional framework, the difficult and painful experience of marketization as well as the near collapse of socialist social policies that followed the demise of the ancien regime. Although the situation of each country is unique, a number of similar problems feature prominently in the worsening social scenario. First, increasing unemployment has threatened the very basis of survival for many, and the pressure to introduce unemployment benefits has become irresistible. Second, erosion of living standards of up to 30 per cent has been common. Poverty has become more widespread. Not surprisingly the hardest hit have been pensioners, redundant workers and large families. Third, the watering down of many social benefits is everywhere apparent. Nevertheless, low priority has been given to welfare issues and to redistribute ‘transition costs’ more evenly. Fourth, welfare pluralism becomes the accepted strategy to plug the gaps left by the disintegration of former systems and as a pragmatic response to mass insecurities. The contribution of civil society to individual welfare, including the family, labour unions, church groups, NGOs, and even transnational organizations (in particular the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in insisting on a programme of drastic privatization, fiscal reform and budget restraints) has become more noteworthy. The further China goes in the direction of a market economy, the more relevant are the above challenges and lessons despite the fact that its state and party structure has remained intact. The ways in which China’s welfare systems, in particular its residual support structure, rise up to the reform challenge is a core concern of the study.

CHINA’S RESIDUAL WELFARE SYSTEM—AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK The above literature review offers a pool of concepts and approaches but no single paradigm that can explain the course and arrangements for welfare. Neither are there models that apply equally well across ideological-economic spectrums. At one end, welfare state models are firmly based on a bedrock of capitalist economy and parliamentary democracy. At the other end, the gap between theory and practice of welfare in socialist societies is too wide to sustain a model of radical redistribution, equality and maximalist pursuit of welfare. A more pragmatic option is to turn to an acceptable framework rather than formal paradigms. This is no easy task. To find one that fits China’s special situations is more daunting still. China is the world’s most populous country; its 1.2 billion population is 22 per cent of mankind. It has a documented history of four millennia and is very conscious of its heritage. Its continental size has vast regional diversity. Its government system is buttressed by communist ideology and domination by one party. In terms of economic organization, public ownership and state control are still prominent. Only in the last seventeen years have markets re-emerged. Now the economy is a mixture of plan and market. The avowed aim is transformation into a market system, albeit one with socialist characteristics. The configuration of these unique features and the depth of change are remarkable. As far as welfare developments


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are concerned, an explanatory framework which is free of system bias and at the same time flexible and dynamic is indicated. Rose’s welfare mix model (Rose 1986) looks promising. As its name implies, welfare is taken to be the product of a mixture of social arrangements. In any society there are four ways of providing a given service, depending on whether or not the service is monetized at the point of production, and whether it is sold at the point of consumption. These are: the market (where both production and consumption of services are monetized), the state (where production is monetized but consumption is on a non-market basis), the household or family (where neither production nor consumption is monetized) and barter (a market exchange without money). Of the four, barter has little salience in modern societies. Thus total welfare in modern society (TWS) can be depicted by the following equation:

in which H equals the household production of welfare, M equals welfare bought and sold in the market, and S equals welfare produced by the state. Rose holds that the welfare mix of a given society is characterized by the proportion of goods and services produced by each supplier. Furthermore, each sector is inherently replaceable by any other. Thus a dominant state role does not imply that state monopoly is inevitable, neither does a mixed economy of welfare lead to a diminution of welfare goods produced. Indeed, total welfare in society is likely to be greater if there are multiple rather than single producers. The question of what is the best approach is ultimately a national decision. For example, the state can assume responsibility for universalist services in income maintenance, health care and education (as in Britain, France, and Scandinavia). Alternatively, fiscal restraints can activate calls for privatization (under the Thatcher and Reagan administra-tions) and greater use of the voluntary sector (Wolfenden Committee 1977, Hadley and Hatch 1981). More elastic in the production and consumption of welfare is the household in responding to such adversities as unemployment, decreased income and the curtailment of state provisions. The means available to the household include caring for disabled members, resorting to do-it-yourself services or mutual aid between households and neighbours. Exercising significant influence are cultural values in society. For example, both Japan and China extol family values. In these societies, the state takes a back seat in providing personal social services (Maruo 1986, Pinker 1986, Yang 1957, Yuan 1988a and 1988b). Besides Rose’s brand of welfare mix, other pluralist models have been postulated. The conceptual underpinning of these variants is welfare pluralism. Johnson (1987) uses the term ‘welfare pluralism’ to convey the fact that health, education and social care need not be the monopoly of the state. These can be obtained from different sectors including the statutory, the voluntary, the commercial and the informal. In the same vein is Higgins’s welfare provider model. The difference is the combination of the mix. The key players include the state, employers, labour unions, voluntary agencies, commercial services and families (Higgins 1986). The welfare pluralism framework is useful to the study of welfare arrangements in China. The ingredients of the mix, however, derive from its particular structural and


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cultural requirements. Hence, in place of Rose’s state-market-household perspective, a state-collective-family perspective is more appropriate. Additionally, the influence of traditional culture must be reckoned. In light of its advancing marketization, the threesector mix needs modification to include the role of voluntary organizations and commercial services. The scope of welfare activities performed by civil affairs departments marks the contour of China’s narrow welfare system. Its clients are marginal members of society. The help they receive is remedial and minimal. Within the state bureaucracy, the position of civil affairs is a meek one. It has inadequate resources to discharge its functions. In Chapter 3 I shall delineate its core programmes and how its work evolved under three decades of Maoist rule. A review of its service record, funding, popular perception and organizational effectiveness leads to one conclusion: welfare residualism has belied China’s endeavours to help its needy citizens. In Chapter 4 I shall identify the welfare challenge under the reform. It is obvious that the altered institutional and policy framework sets the operational context of the newly formed Ministry of Civil Affairs (in 1978). The economic and social consequences present themselves as instigators to reform within the residual welfare system. The new policy of socializing welfare responsibility will be examined and parallels with privatization drawn. It is concluded that the Chinese approach culminates in welfare pluralism. It also represents a redefinition of the roles between the state and constituent groups within civil society. The concrete ways in which welfare programmes have expanded and renewed themselves will then follow. The programmes of preferential treatment, veteran resettlement, social welfare, and rural welfare will be analysed in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 I shall examine urban welfare and relief as well as mutual aid endeavours. A scrutiny of the gains and deficiencies of welfare reforms suggests a mixed record in meeting the needs of old and new clients. What has also occurred is a number of policy and social ramifications. In the analysis of social programme delivery, the key questions are: who gets what? how are services delivered? and how are they financed? (Gates 1980). Chapters 3 to 6 address these issues. Equally crucial is the why dimension: what determines the civil affairs approach to welfare. It is my view that a clue to the marginality of civil affairs welfare, playing a supplementary role vis-à-vis other social sectors and agencies, must be sought through a holistic perspective. My contention is that such residuality is the result of the interaction of four factors—the traditional culture of welfare, the role of the state, utilitarian Chinese familism, and the key function of the collective in social care. Chapter 2 outlines the legacy of China’s culture of welfare. The unique blend of values and practices evolving over its long history is conducive to shaping marginal expectations of state welfare support. In particular, views on philanthropy, primacy of family obligations, perception of state-individual relations and importance of communal care evinced a framework of values receptive to a conservative approach to welfare. Similarly, welfare practice located in traditional institutions contributes to cultural acceptance of self-reliance, family duty and local aid. The role of the state is the theme of Chapter 7. In socialist China, the party state dictates the life of the national community. Welfare residualism is attributed to a narrow


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conception of welfare as perceived by the party state, preference for a decentralized approach to need satisfaction and the paucity of state resources. The de-emphasis of state aid is shaped by communist aversion to non-productive consumption and its choice of change strategy. The government’s reliance on decentralized welfare arrangements allows it to reduce its direct service role to a minimum. Resource constraints likewise impose stringency and selectivity. Chapter 8 analyses the role of utilitarian Chinese familism. Skeletal state provisions are made possible by the continued importance of the family as a welfare device under socialism. Despite its repugnance towards the atomistic and feudalistic aspects of Chinese familism, the state embraces a family policy of exploiting the ethical and utilitarian dimensions of such a legacy. After the liberation, the family as a basis of social consumption has never been challenged. With the onset of economic reforms, the family took on heavier burdens. Conscious exploitation of family care lessens the need for state involvement. Chapter 9 focuses on the contribution of the collective in welfare. The importance of welfare and relief is reduced by the centrality of the collective as a welfare provider. Essentially, the collective refers to the unit of production in both rural and urban contexts. The rationale for collective care rests on the sanctity of work and the use of labour participation as the basis for distribution. The fusion of employment and welfare arrangements ensures the livelihood for the vast majority so that only limited provisions need to be made for special groups. Nevertheless, the reforms have altered the customary arrangements. To a large extent, it is the erosion of the collective framework that calls for new welfare reforms. In the final chaper I shall recast the core intellectual questions. The issues of ‘a social welfare system with Chinese characteristics’, the determinants of the Chinese welfare mix and the theoretical relevance of the Chinese approach will be evaluated. The lot of the the down and out, the needy and the marginalized peasantry is a story too important to be left untold. In terms of human welfare and social development, the question of welfare that concerns a billion people must concern the rest of the world. This book hopefully makes some contribution to this end.

2 The culture of welfare The pre-revolutionary legacy China is a country with a big historical baggage. In welfare matters, there has also been a venerable tradition of state and society involvement in caring for the needy. Despite its socialist revolution, this cultural legacy has cast a long shadow in shaping popular values and practices, presenting the communist state with a starting point to review and adapt the past to suit new realities and pursue its aspirations. This chapter aims to describe the pre-revolutionary culture of welfare, and, in the process, assess its salience for socialist China.

ORGANIZING CONCEPT Each society has its own ways of organizing social welfare. The approach it adopts develops out of a unique set of historical and cultural circumstances. It can be said that the resulting pattern reflects its choice of values and institutional arrangements which are rooted in the very fabric of society. These cultural specific elements constitute what Pinker calls a ‘culture of welfare’, that ‘includes the values which influence people’s notions of obligation and entitlement, and the conventions through which these notions find practical expression’ (Pinker 1986). Indeed the key role of contextual factors and societal choice has been stressed by many writers on social policy (Titmuss 1974, Robson 1976, Mishra 1981, Rose 1986). Social welfare is an integral part of society. As such it can only be studied in relation to its roots. The importance of values for social welfare is well recognized. For example, Marshall sees the welfare state in twentieth century Britain as the embodiment of common beliefs in social rights (Marshall 1970). From the USA Robertson sees ‘post-industrial values’ stressing the salience of the quality of life, self-actualization and societal obligation to facilitate the fufilment of human potentials as the driving force of the vast expansion of social programmes after the Second World War (Robertson 1980). Values endorsing collective intervention in social life legitimize state social spending. Without this bedrock of support, welfare matters tend to be left to individuals, families and voluntary organizations. The case of the USA, a ‘welfare laggard’ among industrial nations, is said to epitomize this. Its complex system of values with predominance given to rugged individualism, success orientation, problem moralism and acceptance of ethnic and religious freedoms over humanitarian regard for the needy is allegedly blamed for preventing the institutionalization of public welfare (Tropman 1976, 1989). On the other hand, prevailing institutional arrangements can be products of evolution,


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tradition, or reform. In Europe before the Industrial Revolution, individual well-being was secured within the family, and, to a lesser extent, the local village and church. With the advent of industrialization, social programmes under public auspices evolved to deal with the effects of structural malfunctions (Wilensky and Lebeaux 1965). Notwithstanding their weakening, primary groups are still the prime agents of social care for ordinary people. A vast literature from the West shows that families and kin (Land and Parker 1978; Finch and Groves 1980, 1983; Walker 1982; Lewis 1986; Finch 1989; Finch and Mason 1990; Baldock 1994), neighbours and informal networks (Abrams et al. 1981, Abrams 1984, Gottleib 1981, Willmott 1986, Bulmer 1988, Secretaries of State for Health and Social Security 1989, Audit Commission 1992, Hoyes and Means 1993) continue to assume this mantle. Indeed, under the influence of neo-conservative ideology and fiscal crisis, many governments, like the Thatcher and Reagan administrations, have called for a return to family values, informal care and philanthropy. Evolution lies behind the birth and ongoing adaptation of welfare states and other informal systems of social care. The vital role played by tradition is amply demonstrated by the case of Japan. There, the importance of occupational welfare is well-known. Many employees look to the firm to satisfy the bulk of their needs. Large corporations even guarantee life tenure for their staff. The role of enterprises is such that ‘employer-based welfare is a major determinant of life-chances’. In comparison, state benefits developed to fill the gaps left by company welfare. Even today, public programmes cannot compare with enterprise schemes in coverage, generosity and sensitivity. The wide obligations of employers is said to be not only a reflection but also an extension of traditional culture (Pinker 1986). Finally, on the note of reform, all welfare state legislations can be regarded as deliberate attempts to fashion new collective means to tackle problems. In most industrial countries, states have gone through a metamorphosis from laissez-faire caretaker to welfare state. In the process, public bureaucracies have grown in size and complexity as they respond to changing needs and the expectation of a bigger role for the government as a social arbitrator, guarantor and provider. In China, the traditional culture of welfare can be no less important. The continuity and change in welfare values and institutional practices have imposed a unique character on the Chinese welfare system.

THE TRADITONAL CULTURE OF WELFARE The traditional period referred to here covers the late Qing (1634–1911) and the Republican interregnum (1911–49). Nineteenth-century China faced a time of political and moral decay. The Manchu government suffered a string of defeats at the hands of Western powers, resulting in unfair treaties, huge indemnities, economic exploitation and loss of national self-esteem. The establishment of the Republic did not put an end to chaos and humiliation. The brief interregnum saw China torn by warlordism (1916–28), wars between the Guomindong (Nationalists) and the Communists, resistance to Japanese aggression (1937–45) and full-scale civil war (1945–9) before final victory went to the Communists. Economically, China was going through the early stages of

The culture of welfare

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industrialization, with the growth of a modern economy sprouting in the treaty ports and urban areas. However, the fledgling domestic industries proved defenceless against imports from the many colonial powers who preyed on China’s weakness. Socially, there were rapid social changes as a result of wartime dislocation, civil strife, modernization and urbanization (Sheridan 1975). Disintegration and turmoil was what befell Chinese society for a century or more (Thomson 1980). Traditional values Family obligations Of all values that underpin people’s concept of obligation and entitlement, none is more important than the precept of family duty. All through Chinese history, the family system occupied a revered place as the core unit of society. People were invariably looked upon as members of families, never as free-standing individuals (Fei [1939] 1947; Hsu 1949, 1955; Feng 1949; Liang 1975). Of the five cardinal human relations (wu lun) in traditional society: ruler-subject, father-son, husband-wife, older brother-younger brother, friends (Analects of Confucius), three belonged to relations in the family. Rules of proper conduct were prescribed for each dyad—namely, ‘affection between father and son, righteous conduct between ruler and subject, distinction between husband and wife, proper order between old and young, and trust between friends’ (Mencius). Among these, the primary principle was xiao or filial piety. Children were expected to obey, support and respect their parents and elders. At the same time, it was equally the duty of parents and elders to succour and teach the young and for the other senior members to reciprocate their obligations. These dyads constituted what Firth called the ‘social cement’ of traditional Chinese society (Firth 1951). Everybody had a place in his or her social group. Everyone was clear about his or her role expectations. The primary importance of the family as a social care unit can be adduced by many old sayings. Such proverbs as ‘Men rear sons to provide for old age; they plant trees because they want shade’, and ‘Men rear sons to provide for old age, they store up grain to provide for years of famine’, attest to the value of raising children, male children, as a form of social investment (Yang 1957). Han Yu-shan calls this the ‘group insurance’ principle. Among the concrete benefits which come to the individual from the system of filial piety is that of ‘group insurance’. Each child…has his birthright, the right to…whatever assets the family possesses. Each aged person counts on as much comfort in his declining years as the family can possibly give. (Han 1946:7) For the above to happen, it was imperative that adults get married and produce male children. Under traditional thinking, nothing could be more unfilial than remaining single and breaking up the blood line. Daughters were only transients in their natal family. After marriage, their primary duty was towards their husbands’ families. Even now, married


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peasant women in China are commonly exempted from supporting their own natural parents if they have dependent in-laws. For the purpose of communal assistance, the rural indigent who has no sons (and grandchildren) would qualify. Having married daughters who have their own in-law support obligations would not bar them from getting communal relief. Even principles governing extra-familial conduct were derived from family ethics. Loyalty to one’s ruler came from the same moral source as loyalty to one’s parents. Thus, xiao or filial piety was the cornerstone of an orderly society where all members performed their social obligations (Bodde 1981, Fairbank 1983, Schwartz 1985). At the same time, good government was assured when sovereigns treated their subjects as their children. Hence, the kind of authority exercised by the father in a patrilineal family formed the ideal of political rulership (Schwartz 1985). What’s more, the act of gratifying one’s family brought other rewards. The learning attendant on the practice could teach one to care for others so that ‘one reveres other elders as one reveres one’s own elders and loves other children as one loves one’s own children’ (lao wu lao yiji ren zhi lao, you wu you yiji ren zhi you). In summation, the weight of the traditional family extended beyond the functions it performed for its members. It played ‘a leading part in economic life, in social control, in moral education, and in government’ (Latourette 1964:565, Chow 1991). Stable families were the key to a harmonious and well-ordered society. Concepts of mutuality In Confucian thinking, man was regarded as basically benevolent. Asked by one of his disciples about the meaning of philanthropy, Confucius said, ‘it is to love all men’ (Analects of Confucius). Similarly, Mencius taught that human beings were born with ‘feelings of commiseration’ (ce ren zhi xin) (Mencius). To both Confucius and Mencius, the charitable impulse was intrinsic to man’s nature. Philanthropy was a virtue as well as a hallmark of humanity. Notwithstanding such thinking, universal love was no more than an ideal. Western ideas of loving all persons in equal measure, as one’s maker loved all without regard to status, worth and character, had no resonance in Chinese ethics. In Chinese society, entitlements and obligations were strictly ordered. The pre-eminence of the family had been noted. Beyond the immediate family, differential treatment of others was prescribed. Among these, people sharing five affinities (wu tong) with oneself merited favours. The wu tong (five same) relations were tong zong (same surname), tong zu (same clan), tong xiang (same village), tong xue (same master) and tong shi (same place of work). Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong called this a concentric pattern of social relations with positions measured by how close one stood in relation to the actor (Fei [1939] 1947). The more distant the location from the centre, the weaker the claim, so that ultimately one did not have any obligation to people not known to oneself. This is in direct contrast to the Christian spirit of the good Samaritan and the common Western notion that social welfare is by nature help to the stranger whose social plight constitutes the basis of his or her claim for assistance (Watson 1980). A similar observation was made by Western missionaries working in China in the Republican period. The lack of a free-floating ‘universal ethic’ uniting disparate groups,


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jealous provincialism and particularism was found to be endemic and distressing (Garret 1970). The popularity of mission bodies like the Chinese YMCA was attributed to their success in overriding particularist concerns and their ability to persuade different groups to take part in common action to meet social needs (ibid.). Religious values In examining indigenous Chinese religion, some features stood out in sharp contrast to the Judeo-Christian tradition (Liang 1975, Yang 1961, Fairbank 1983, Mote 1971). First, there was no creation myth about the universe. Second, there was no universal church. Third, there seemed to be two distinct cultural traditions. One, the Taoist or folk tradition of the common masses, manifested itself in polytheist worship of anything from gods, ghosts, spirits to natural objects. The other, the grand tradition, was followed by the Confucian scholar-gentry. Basically agnostic and naturalistic in outlook, the Confucian orthodoxy proscribed supernatural and animist beliefs and practices. Instead there was the belief in a harmonious cosmos in which man was but one element. The human and natural orders were linked and reflected upon one another. First and foremost, man must be filial. The high regard one had for one’s ancestors found expression in the practice of ancestor worship, as in the performance of religious rituals in weddings, funerals, festivals and other family celebrations. At the same time, all subjects must observe proper conduct. Rulers must govern wisely to ensure Heaven’s favour. Such beliefs legitimized existing social norms and a polity based on obedience and stability. They were more important as reinforcers of the social and political order than a driving force for maintaining livelihood. The imported religion of Buddhism has had more explicit influence on Chinese welfare philosophy. Two strands had particular relevance. One was the concept of charity. This was symbolized by Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy. In her was abstracted the principle of compassion. Not only did she promise mercy and solace for people in suffering, she also appealed to their sense of benevolence. The popular belief that credits could be gained from the performance of good deeds, and that these could be transferred to one’s descendants and to the next life, encouraged moral investment through almsgiving. The other strand related to the role of monasteries in dispensing relief to the poor and as places of refuge. That they could carry out such work was made possible by two conditions. Some owned large estates; at the same time, they attracted a lot of donations. The shan nan nü (charitable men and devout women) donated money not only for the maintenance of the temples but towards good work to help the poor. In comparison, Christianity has made little inroads in Chinese society. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that large waves of missionary activity invaded China. Although their evangelical work did not result in mass conversions (Varg 1958, Thomson 1969), their social evangelism exerted a strong appeal. Missionary bodies became strong champions of welfare ethics to help the Chinese masses during the Republican period. Ecology-based values China was an agrarian society. The majority of the people lived on family farms. The


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land-based economy induced economic and emotional attachment to the land and the ancestral village. Rural values also influenced the gentry who might live in the towns but retained strong links with their home community. Fei Xiaotong describes the quagmire of old agricultural conditions and practices as an ‘economy of scarcity’. The longestablished low-level manpower economy required supportive values of contentment and limitation of wants (Fei [1939] 1947). Fairbank shares this view. He held the view that the age-old acceptance of institutionalized penury of peasant life enabled the individual to fit into his kinship group, sustain his lot in life and become socially integrated in the community (Fairbank 1983). The logic was that subsistence living required constant hard work. Thus there was a rational reason for extolling industriousness, a commonly acknowledged character trait of the Chinese. Shue likewise characterized peasant culture as consisting of three elements. First, farm family autonomy. The aim is to achieve family self-sufficiency and avoid indebtedness which might necessitate, in the last resort, the selling of land upon which livelihood depends. The second is risk aversion. This is manifested in the ‘safety first’ principle since peasants generally live too close to subsistence to allow them the luxury of taking risks. Third, harmony and withdrawal from conflict. Peasants generally believe in harmonious conduct of village affairs and are content to be led by their elders (Shue 1988). The widespread acceptance of fate also makes failure and disasters, for instance death, natural calamities and poverty, easier to bear should all human efforts fail (Harrell 1987). Even today, many Chinese on the mainland and in the diaspora profess their belief in fate, allowing many the ultimate justification of hardship and mishap, not to say stoic acceptance of their lot in life. The relevance of ecology-based values on welfare was not hard to grasp. First, they interacted with and reinforced cultural values like familism and localism. Second, hard work, acceptance of penury and want containment made peasants self-reliant and reduced expectation of help from government and non-local agencies. When relief was actually given, feelings of gratitude rather than entitlement prevailed. In fact, according to historian Wang Gungwu, throughout the long course of Chinese history the concept of personal right was not prominent; what was emphasized was the sense of duty to authority, whether it was the family or the state (Wang 1979). In a recent study of Chinese welfare values in Hong Kong, Tao also found the notion of right alien to the psychological realities of welfare recipients (Tao 1990). As a result, many people on social assistance felt a strong sense of stigma for failing to remain self-sufficient. In China today, people living on state and community support feel humiliated by their experience. Institutional arrangements Family and lineage In China, family (jia) and lineage (zu) are different concepts (Freedman 1961). Family is the realm of domestic life, a realm of co-residence and the constant involvement in affairs of the hearth, children and marriage. The extended kin group is traced exclusively through male children. The special network of kin relations are sometimes so extensive and organized as to form patrilineal descent groups known as clans or lineages. Some of


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these hold substantial common property. There have been many studies of Chinese family and kinship systems. The work of Lang (1946), Yang (1959, 1961), Levy (1949), Hsu (1971), and Freedman (1958, 1966) are prime examples. From the perspective of welfare, a number of observations on relevant institutional arrangements can be made. First, within the jia, common sharing and mutual obligation prevailed. The old, the young, the sick and disabled were looked after within the family, with women acting as the major carers. When families divided and sons married and set up their conjugal families, elderly parents usually lived with one of the sons and his children. Second. the extended kin supplemented the resources of the family. Large lineages often possessed corporate assets. The proceeds were used to relieve poor lineage members, support widows and orphans, maintain ancestral halls, finance rites of worship, and subsidize employment of tutors and village amenities. While strife and conflicts occurred in everyday life, external solidarity was insisted on when dealing with outsiders. Indeed, loyalty to one’s family and kin was often so intense that it prevailed over loyalty to the nation. The family system was profoundly affected by rapid social change in the Republican interregnum. Three developments were particularly relevant. First, the authoritarian and selfish aspects of familism were attacked as part of the debunking of Chinese culture by intellectuals. Repression of the young, women and individuals was condemned. Exclusive allegiance to the family above all else was seen as an impediment to nation building (Wang 1979). Second, modernization and urbanization had weakened the attachment to the family and village, enlarged work and educational opportunities for young people and women, and challenged the authority of elders. Above all, it was war that caused a family revolution. Writing about China during the Anti-Japanese War, Snow observed, Possibly this war has more profoundly shaken the Chinese family system than any previous catastrophes. Millions of children have been separated from their parents, some by army conscription, some in the confusion of escape from death, but thousands by voluntary desertion of family for country… Far up in North Shaanxi I saw an ancient temple transformed into a printing shop run by workers who were all atheists. Elsewhere in China the gods are tossed into the rain and the temples converted into hospitals and barracks, with little protest from anyone. (quoted by Gatu 1983:67) Under the above circumstances, the family’s capability to provide for its members was seriously weakened. In the best of times, the masses of peasant families could barely eke out subsistence living from the land. Precarious climate, natural disasters, exploitative tenancy systems, and heavy taxation posed constant threats of poverty and starvation. Under extreme conditions, it was not uncommon for peasant families to sell their wives and children. Even cannibalism had been reported during severe famines in the past (Deng [1937] 1993). The lot of city dwellers may be slightly better. However, even they had problems making ends meet when jobs were hard to get and wages were too low to support one


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whole family. Locality-based institutions Peasant attachment to the land and the existence of lineages gave rise to localism. In many parts of China it was not uncommon to have whole villages populated by people bearing one or a few surnames. Community spirit was founded on generations of residence, by association in childhood and identification of common economic interests. Village communities were responsible for the maintenance of roads, supervision of fairs, building and upkeep of public edifices, sinking of wells, engagement of theatrical companies, and local policing. For charitable purposes, many villages set up local societies for the care of foundlings, poor families and their children, and mutual loan associations (Tsu 1912). A lot of mutual help also characterized the relations between neighbours during busy spells in the crop cycle. Exchange of labour between families was common as well, obviating the need for paid services in a non-cash agrarian economy. Even among migrants, the special bond with one’s ancestral village was strong. In South China, where 80 per cent of overseas Chinese originated, remittances and charitable donations marked their nostalgia for their homeland. In the past it was the dream of most sojourners to retire to the home village and to be buried among their ancestors. Even in contemporary China, villagers commonly address each other by prefixing names with the titles of uncle, aunt, elder brother and the like even though they may not be related by blood. Concern for renqing (human feelings) still features prominently in their dealings with fellow villagers (Madsen 1984). Similar practices also prevail among indigenous villagers in the New Territories of Hong Kong. To family and relatives in China, Hong Kong has always been a major source of remittance; in the decades after communist rule, such inflows have continued. Likewise donations for schools and community projects back home from the territory have been significant. These were to pick up very substantially after China adopted a policy for open door and reform. Outside the village, urban migrants also gave support to people from the same locality. The conduit was through the formation of district and provincial clubs. Known as hui guan, these clubs functioned as channels of mutual protection as well as social and business intercourse. They also acted as natural agencies for mutual aid (Whyte and Parish 1984). For example, hui guan provided care for transients and new arrivals, assisted destitute members, arranged free repatriation or burials, helped needy students and so on. In Hong Kong, provincial and district associations were very active before the 1970s. Their welfare work included the dispensing of free medicine, schooling, and relief for their members (Ngan 1985). The value of localism was instrumental in helping immigrants adjust to an unfamiliar and hostile environment (Hamilton 1990). At the very least, regional associations kept alive people’s emotional ties to their native place. The role of government The Confucian sages advocated government by virtue, which was deemed more effective


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than the rule of laws. In particular, Confucius warned against greedy and self-seeking government. It was wrong of rulers to overtax the people and allow concentration of wealth among the privileged few (Hung 1979). Mencius went even further by pointing out that inequality was a greater evil than poverty. To him, the state had an inescapable duty to eliminate destitution among the people and realize the economic sufficiency of families (Tsu 1912). All through Chinese history, there was the belief that kings must govern with compassion and wisdom. Otherwise they would lose the mandate of heaven (Wang 1979). The religious overtone to the moral duty of kings and government to secure the livelihood of the people and peace in civil society was reflected in the Chinese word for revolution ge ming, which literally means ‘transferring the mandate’ (Bodde 1957:56). Several state policies have been useful in promoting the macro-economic well-being of the people. Of a positive and preventive nature, there was the state monopoly on the sale of such vital commodities as salt and iron ore, which precluded exploitation by unscrupulous merchants. Another was the granary system. This had its earliest origin in the Zhou dynasty (1066–256 BC) when grain was stored to forestall famine. The system of changpincang was formalized in the Han (206 BC to AD 220), wherein central and local governments maintained a system of public granaries which operated on a price levelling principle (Zhang 1962, Meng and Wang 1986). What this meant was that grain would be bought when prices hit rock bottom and sold when they became too high. This ensured that farmers would not go bankrupt and prices were affordable to consumers (Deng [1937] 1993). In the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907), state granaries were supplemented by grain stores run by local communities and charitable bodies (shecang and yicang), and the system persisted throughout the rest of the imperial period. How effective the granary system had worked was always open to question. According to Hsiao Kung-chuan, it could not have provided adequate relief for the empire because granaries had only a limited storage capacity. Furthermore, located in towns and cities, the system was more beneficial to people who lived near them than to the hungry masses from the countryside. Its efficacy would also be marred by almost every kind of official corruption and gentry abuse of power (Hsiao 1960:163, Nathan 1965:2). Throughout the centuries, China has earned the reputation of being a ‘land of famine’ (Mallory 1926). Famines have been the outcome of multiple causation, both natural and man-made. Included in the first group of factors are droughts, floods, pests, bad weather, and other acts of nature and geography. Indeed the catastrophes that had come from the overflowing of the Huang He (Yellow River) are well chronicled. No less culpable are manmade factors. These include deforestation, ruinous tenancy, repressive taxation, inadequate government policies and over-population (Deng [1937] 1993). These compounded the adverse effects of nature and made the lot of victims much worse. In calamitous occurrences, deaths from starvation and epidemics ran into tens of millions. Many historical works documented a long tradition of famine relief by the state (Hosie 1878, Forrest and Hillier 1879, Tsu 1912, Mallory 1926, Deng [1937] 1993, Nathan 1965, Meng and Wang 1986). In times of disaster, kings and officials often decreed the feeding of the hungry from grain stored in public granaries. Natural disaster relief by the government took many forms. The methods included organizing soup kitchens, direct handouts in money or in kind, work relief (engaging the poor for public work projects)


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and the granting of loans. Even in the more distant past, some of these operations had been of a gigantic scale. One example was the famine that followed severe flooding in Henan province during 1593–4. Out of the 18.7 million victims affected, the state gave relief to 12.3 million; total expenditure was estimated to be between 850,000 to 1.1 million ounces of silver (Yim 1978). In addition, measures such as tax deferment, reduction and exemption were quite routine in order to relieve and restore the financial health of stricken areas. Closer to the present, in the great famine of 1920–1, which struck five provinces in North China, serious drought famine ravaged 317 counties, affecting 19.9 million people out of a total population of 49.9 million. Relief operations in this famine was conducted on an unprecedented scale: the total relief expended amounted to Mex.37 million. One notable feature of the effort was the participation of foreign sources—missionaries, international organizations, foreign government advisers, etc. Various records at the time estimated that approximately 40 per cent of the aid came from non-domestic auspices (Nathan 1965:6). If famine relief by the state had been well established, the same could not be said for regular social relief for the needy. Imperial edicts since the Zhou had decreed state aid for the destitute elderly, the disabled, and orphans in the form of outdoor relief, poor houses, free medical care and foundling homes. However, the scale and operation of such activities is unknown. The description of state aid during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) is slightly more satisfactory. In a book published after the fall of the Qing, The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy: A Study in Mutual Aid by Yu-Yue Tsu (1912), anecdotal accounts were given of various state programmes. For example, Emperor Kang Xi ordered the establishment of foundling hospitals throughout the empire in 1711. In 1724, a government almshouse was opened at Canton (Guangzhou), and in 1739 Emperor Qian Long commanded it to feed 4,676 destitute persons. In 1783, the same emperor reprinted an edict published in 1659 which condemned the desertion and killing of infants. Above all, the Qing Poor Law recognized the right to relief of those dependent persons who could be classified as the worthy poor. All poor destitute widowers and widows, the fatherless and children, the helpless and the infirm, shall receive sufficient maintenance and protection from the magistrates of their native city or district, whenever they have neither relations nor connections upon whom they can depend for support. Any magistrate refusing such maintenance and protection shall be punished with 60 blows. (Tsu 1912:26) It should be noted that according to Chinese tradition, the guan (widower), gua (widow), gu (orphan) and du (single men) categories were regarded as deserving of charity. The Qing edict makes it clear that the granting of aid was contingent on the lack of family care. Seen in this light, the meaning of state help was not only to help the needy but to restore integration and harmony in society when the natural agency of care, the family, went into eclipse. In present-day China, these persons come under the label of the ‘three no’s’ (people who have no family, no work ability, and no means of livelihood). They are


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virtually the only groups that receive regular assistance from the state and local community. Despite the enlightened thinking enshrined in Qing legislation, the Poor Law provisions were not enforceable. In the first place, there was no special administrative machinery. What’s more, the relief duties imposed on magistrates did not involve additional resources from central government. Neither were local administrations allowed to raise taxation for this purpose (Tsu 1912). Indeed, the penetration of the imperial government into the everyday life of civil society was tenuous. It was estimated that the size of the entire civil service was around 100,000 at the end of the imperial era, when the population totalled 400 million (Pye 1984:69). Historians are generally agreed that state power extended to only the xian (county) level (with jurisdiction over some 50,000 people) in the Ming and to the zhou (around 250,000 people) in the Qing dynasties (ibid.). District magistrates, with their administrative seat located in the xiancheng (county capital) relied on the local gentry as arbitrators at the grassroots. Accordingly the latter collected tax, organized corvée labour and maintained order. Only in severe cases of criminality and rebellion would magistrates intervene. The indirect and remote nature of state influence was captured vividly by the saying, ‘Heaven is high above and the emperor is far away’ (tian gao wangdi yuan). Under Nationalist rule, either central government did not exist or was unable to impose national influence. In most years, the government was unable to raise enough revenue, and national indebtedness was a big problem. For example, in 1925, outstanding debts of the central government alone amounted to 1,634 million yuan and rose to 2,212 million yuan in 1928 so that a large part of revenue went to interest and debt servicing. To meet constant deficits, the government resorted to more borrowing, as much as 25 per cent of its expenditure from banks through the issue of bonds (Fairbank 1983). A number of reasons accounted for the fiscal malaise. First, the economic base was weak. In particular, China’s fledgling industries were undermined by foreign imports (Fei [1939] 1947). Second, there was widespread corruption. Most importantly, constant war, internecine as well as anti-Japanese, necessitated heavy military spending. In particular, extermination of the communists was the single obsession of Nationalist leaders. Whatever money there was went to the military. The effect is not hard to imagine. Little money could be found for social programmes. To give but one example, in the year 1929–30, military spending amounted to 92 per cent of the state budget; education expenses took only 1.5 per cent (The China Year Book 1929–30:656). In the area of health, state provisions appeared rather limited too. The China Handbook 1937–45 listed three central hospitals (Chungking, Kweiyang and Lanchow) giving out some 119,884 out-patient treatments and 7,105 in-patient treatments in 1944. At the next level, there were 123 provincial hospitals/clinics and 38 public health offices, units and laboratories. Lower down, the health system consisted of one health centre for each county (with a 20–40 bed hospital and out-patient clinic), a health centre for each district and a health station for each town/village (China Handbook 1937–45). For labour affairs, the national government introduced the Chinese Factory Law (1929, 1942), Labour Union Act (1933, 1943) and Factory Inspection Law (1931). Small-scale experiments on workers’ welfare funds and social insurance were also tried out (ibid.). Another piece of social legislation enacted was the Civil Code of 1929. Among its


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many provisions, some were directed at the protection of women and children. For example, the law prohibited the sale, murder, harsh treatment, and coercion of women and children into marriage. It also declared women to be equal and complete citizens; for the first time, women were given the rights of equal inheritance with men (Levy 1949). Thus, the gender-related clauses under the Republican code actually antedated the socialist marriage law of 1950, undermining the latter’s claim as the sole champion of the rights of women. Nevertheless, the efficacy of the Nationalist policy cannot be presumed. Due to the limit of state authority, lack of publicity and resources, these provisions, as well as other labour legislations, remained largely paper exercises. On relief, the ravage of war and natural disasters created huge needs. Government records showed that between 1938 and 1944, some 867.7 million dollars was appropriated to help 30 million war refugees (China Handbook 1937–45). Nineteen fortyseven was the last year in which Nationalist government statistics were available before their defeat and ousting from the mainland. That year counted the dispensing of 22.9 billion dollars for emergency relief in Nationalist-held areas, and 117 billion dollars grant and 68.5 billion dollars loan for disaster relief in local areas which went to assist 15 million disaster victims (Zhang 1962:1154). Such sums looked respectable. It must be remembered, however, the final years of Nationalist administration were times of skyrocketing inflation. What quantities of goods the money could buy went down vastly day by day. In terms of organization, central responsibility for social welfare work belonged to the Department of Social Affairs (Shehui Bu) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Neiwu Bu), antedating also the institutional arrangements after 1949. The activities involved came under five areas: disaster relief, poor relief, charities, social rehabilitation and health. During severe natural disasters, temporary agencies were also set up to coordinate the overall relief efforts. In the regions (provincial and county level), social welfare work went to departments of civil affairs (minzheng ting/minzheng ke). The proliferation of charitable bodies, state and society, prompted the government to announce governing regulations in 1928 and 1929 (Zhang 1962:1153). A poll conducted by the Department of Social Affairs in August 1945 counted a total of 4,172 relief and charitable associations, including eight operated by central government, 84 by provincial governments, 2,092 under city and county administrations, 1,765 operated by charitable bodies and 204 by religious organizations. A more meaningful output indicator was the number of people taken into care: 225,137. The breakdown was 309 residents in central government institutions, 28,788 catered for by the provinces, 124,196 by cities and counties, 50,796 by charitable bodies and 21,048 by religious agencies. Thus the share of state, philanthropic and religious inputs was respectively 68 per cent, 23 per cent and 9 per cent. Voluntary agencies Trade and craft guilds constituted another channel for mutual assistance. Set up primarily for the protection of the interests of the specific trades and crafts, they were also agencies for social relief among their members (Tsu 1912, Skinner 1977, Whyte and Parish 1984, Hamilton 1990). For some guilds, common identity was symbolized by worship of a


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master or deity—for example, Lu Ban for builders and Hua Guang for Cantonese opera singers. During the Republican period, missionaries played a very notable role in programmes of health, education, welfare and relief. In their attempt to counter the common people’s indifference to Christianity, many turned to social service work. Social evangelism met the dire needs of the population and augmented inadequate state amenities. The most prominent work by missionary bodies was in education. In 1922, 211,819 students were educated in 7,046 schools and colleges set up by overseas missions. By 1936, Protestant institutions were educating some 12 per cent of the total number of college students in China, and, in some years, between 15 and 20 per cent (Holden 1964:494). Christian institutions also pioneered education in medicine, law, journalism, social work and agriculture (ibid.: 490–529). In medical work, foreign input was no less significant. In 1922, the missions had established 326 hospitals in 237 cities, giving a total of 144,477 in-patient and 3 million out-patient treatments. At the end of 1941, missionary and private hospital beds were more numerous than beds maintained by municipal and provincial governments (China Handbook 1937–45). The Rockefeller Foundation was another active player. From 1913 to the mid-1930s, the Foundation allocated some USS37 million to China, the bulk of which went to the advancement of medical science through the Peking Union Medical College and funds distributed by the China Medical Board. During the early phase of Japanese aggression, the donations continued, albeit on a smaller scale, to dry up later in the full onslaught of the war (Thomson 1980). In social work, Christian organizations were deeply involved and took on a pioneering role. Among them, the YMCA was the most prominent. It was famous for its work with young people—student associations, athletics, recreation, social clubs, education—and welfare (opium-control campaigns and relief) (Garret 1970). The Chinese YWCA was also well-known for similar projects, plus nurseries and work with women. At the end of the Sino-Japanese war, many missions were active in providing relief for refugees and foundling homes for war orphans, the aged and the disabled. The institutions confiscated from such bodies were to form the backbone of residential programmes run by civil affairs departments in socialist China. In the field of relief, the work of the China International Famine Relief Commission (CIFRC) was especially noteworthy. Established in 1921 following the disastrous famine in that year, CIFRC was a body that set out to coordinate and administer funds and efforts from within China (both state and other domestic bodies) and from overseas. Up until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the Commission had been extremely active in organizing relief and rural construction projects. Between 1921 and 1930, CIFRC administered funds amounting to some US$32.7 million. In the 1930s, a period of relative stability, the Commission was very active in spearheading rural cooperative movements, engaging in engineering projects and other preventive programmes such as conservancy, irrigation, afforestation and road-building. Its demise probably came during the war years (Nathan 1965). Finally, another international agency should be added to the list. This was the China Office (CNRRA) of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNHCR). This organization had been responsible for mounting a massive relief and


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rehabilitation programme. US$945 million was allocated to provide emergency relief, repatriate displaced persons and run institutions for children, the elderly and cripples during the war years (China Handbook 1937–45).

THE TRADITIONAL LEGACY Traditional Chinese values have some affinity to values underlying a residual model of social policy in Western countries—self-reliance, the family and the market as primary need-meeting mechanisms, problem moralism, importance of mutual help and charity, supplementary role of government, minimal and temporary nature of public welfare provisions. However, there are also essential differences. One is the stress on group orientation rather than individualism. In the Chinese context, individuals are not seen as bearers of rights but servants of duty to their primary group. In the West, however, individuals are seen to possess inalienable rights as persons and as citizens who are entitled to equal treatment before the law. Under socialism, the emphasis on group orientation continues. However, in place of absolute allegiance to the family, loyalty to the state and the collective is demanded. In the days of collective agriculture, the right to subsistence derived from labour participation. Those without families and ability for work were supported by a production team. In urban areas, then and now, labourers have their needs met through the work unit, including wages, social security and services in kind. The pact between work units and employees is less a written contract than a living covenant that binds both parties in a wide range of obligations for the life time. Only people who have no work units and families qualify for state aid. In socialist society, ‘three-no’ targets in town or country have a very low social status. Assistance is granted on the basis of discretion rather than legal right. Relief is extremely paltry as well. The second divergence is the central place of the family and lineage groups in Chinese society. Not only are they regarded as natural agencies of social care, they also have a moral significance that approaches the position of sacred duty. In the West, under the onslaught of modernization, there is more readiness to compensate the loss of family functions through social programmes. The majority of welfare state provisions—child care, residential services, counselling, social rehabilitation and the like—can be seen in this light. In China today, the lack of family ties is the most crucial criterion for the receipt of state and community relief. Shortly after liberation, the hold of lineages has been destroyed by land reform and collective employment (in communes and urban work units), which abolished the material basis of kin organization. Virulent government campaigns against familism also weakened the sense of exclusive loyalty to the family and affirmed a wider notion of the state and the collective. Nevertheless, the social obligation of families continues to receive state endorsement. This duty is enshrined in the country’s Constitution, Marriage Law and Criminal Code. The importance of the family in welfare will be the subject of analysis in Chapter 8. The third distinguishing feature is the relationship between individuals and the state. In traditional Chinese society, the influence of government was mediated through kin and


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local groups. The notion of contractual relations between individuals and the state did not exist. To the extent that the state provided relief for disasters and the unattached, such acts were regarded as the beneficence of virtuous rulers rather than duty owed to citizens. In the West, a universal political franchise has made voters more assertive and governments more answerable to electoral calls for public welfare. Concomitantly, the notion of citizen rights supported the expansion of the state role in societal affairs. In welfare matters, the emergence of an institutional model of social policy sanctions comprehensive provisions by the state. The new welfare ideology embraces values of collective responsibility, rights of citizens, primary role of governments, and notions of social development and prevention. The acceptance of welfare state values set them further away from the welfare residualism in traditional China. By coincidence, Chinese traditional welfare values also have much in common with the principle of subsidiarity in European Catholic social teaching which preached against state encroachment in civil life. In the social policy domain, the latter advocated the greatest decentralization and diversity in service delivery, for example preserving the role of families, neighbourhood and the church and assigning a subsidiary role for governments (Mangen 1991, Pinker 1991b). Both value systems are decidedly conservative in welfare matters and act as normative restraints on collectivist proposals for statutory involvement in social welfare. However, the role of organized religion in China never had the same importance as in the West. People devoid of family and local ties were more supplicants than citizens who could make claims on the wider society. Under Chinese socialism, exploitative class and property relations have supposedly ended with the victory of the revolution. The new regime stands for egalitarianism and fraternity. In material distribution, the guiding principle is labour participation. Only through work would people achieve personal liberation and material welfare. The importance of work organizations is such that they are destined to become the very units that arbitrate individual behaviour and incorporate workers into the state and society. They also mete out benefits on behalf of the state. Those who cannot work are put under a separate residual system entitled to only the crudest aid for survival. In terms of conventions, the pre-modern Chinese welfare system had its own characteristics. The basic principle of care delivery was founded on blood ties. At the centre was the family, where the bond that tied parents and children together was enshrined in the precept of filial piety. Obligations then flowed out to the wider kin network. The family system as a whole has been China’s welfare system par excellence. To the extent that resources of primary groups needed augmenting, locality-based institutions extended the scope of mutual aid and support. Limited geographic mobility arising from difficult transport, emotional attachment to one’s ancestral village and dependence on family farming reinforced localism. Persons cut off from kin and local community had to create surrogate structures in the form of provincial and district associations. These gave support to immigrants in an alien environment who otherwise could not count on help from strangers. Mutual aid was likewise furnished by members practising a common trade or occupation. Government social programmes, apart from relief of disasters, refugees and unattached persons have tended to act as agencies of last resort. In the Republican era, missionary bodies filled the vacuum created by weakened families, urban migration,


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dislocations from war and widespread destitution. In the West, before the advent of large-scale public welfare provisions, traditional institutions like the family, parish, friendly societies, guilds and charities performed valuable functions in social care. However, the scope of state welfare activities in the twentieth century has widened significantly. Although the family, friends, neighbours and informal networks still give succour to individuals, those who are deprived of such support increasingly look to the state for assistance. In the 1980s, pluralism in welfare arrangements has become the rallying call across Europe and North America (Mangen 1991, Pinker 1991a). Even then, a central role is reserved for the state which increasingly takes on an enabling role through financing rather than direct provision of services, supporting voluntary efforts and helping private carers (Baldock and Evers 1991). Taking the traditional culture of welfare as a whole, the Chinese system presented itself as a complex entity. Values and practices were interwoven to form a stable framework of expectations and practices. Social changes in the late Qing and Republican periods weakened traditional arrangments somewhat but did not overturn the basic pattern. The pre-revolutionary legacy was a residual model of welfare with Chinese idiosyncrasies. This model co-existed happily with an economy of scarcity and subsistence agriculture. To the extent that communist China maintains these characteristics, adoption of past practices affords the assurance of continuity, fosters stability of basic social institutions and satisfies cultural expectations. Reliance on family and local collectives also has the practical advantage of saving valuable state resources. For these reasons, tradition still maintains its usefulness to socialist state and society so that a new organic pattern can emerge from the marriage of the old and the new. This will be made clear in later chapters in the book.

CONCLUSION The first point about the historical legacy is that both the values and practices of welfare were integral parts of Chinese culture. The spirit of philanthropy was positively sanctioned, regarded as natural to man’s nature and extolled as a virtue. The Buddhist concept of charity, imported but Sinocized, reinforced the value and practice of philanthropy. Second, Confucian ethics imposed a strong sense of duty to one’s family members and primary relations. Principles of common interest and mutual aid also gave rise to practices centred around the local community and shared occupation. Third, because of the emphasis on family care and limits of state influence, there was no tradition of statutory welfare apart from disaster and famine relief. The role of government was more to provide a macro-framework for social order, stability and prosperity than to engage in direct social aid. Fourth, because entitlement to welfare was closely bounded and group-based, there was no concept of universal right to welfare support. Individuals excluded could not appeal for special consideration apart from regard for common humanity and charity. Under the circumstances, help that was given had an informal, discretionary and stigmatizing character. Finally, what made hardship and privations easier to bear were unique cultural beliefs. Such ecology-based stresses as hard work, limitation of want, self-sufficiency and acceptance of fate make the Chinese


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masses undemanding on formal welfare bureaucracies. As the later chapters will show, the cultural legacy inherited by Chinese leaders and citizens features quite prominently in shaping China’s welfare system.

3 Social welfare in the first three decades When the People’s Republic was founded, the responsibility for social welfare rested with civil affairs departments in local areas which operated under the direction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Neiwu Bu. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) was the forerunner of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), which was formally inaugurated in 1978. Since their very beginning, civil affairs departments in local areas have defined their mission as ‘sharing the burden of the state and solving the problems of the masses’ (Ministry of Civil Affairs 1986:4). Apart from welfare, civil affairs bureaux were also in charge of a number of political and administrative programmes. Nevertheless, social welfare has been the most important function for both the Internal Affairs and the Civil Affairs Ministries. Tracing the genealogy for welfare administration reveals interesting facts about its close association with other facets of governance. The first Civil Affairs Ministry in China was set up in 1906, in the twilight years of the Qing Dynasty. This ministry had extensive powers. Its duties ranged from policing, law and order, registration of households, land administration, roads, hospitals, to sanitation, public health and welfare (Minzheng Gongzuo Gailun 1987:2, hereafter Gailun; Zhongguo Minzheng Shigao 1986:44–5, hereafter Shigao). The birth of the Chinese Republic saw the Qing agency replaced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1912, later renamed the Ministry of Home Affairs (in 1918), the Neizheng Bu, after the practice of Western governments. The home affairs organ had even broader jurisdiction. Its remit included: local government, elections, relief, rehabilitation and charities, household registration, land administration, police, conscription, registration of societies, health and the supervision of local officials (Shigao 1986:4– 5). In 1940, a Ministry of Social Affairs was created to take charge of war relief and social welfare (China Handbook 1937–45). Before the communists consolidated their power nationally, they had set up civil affairs agencies in the occupied areas. These came under the aegis of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the practice continued after 1949. Internal Affairs was one of the first ministries established under the Government Administration Council. later renamed the State Council. Below the central (Ministry) level, civil affairs agencies were set up in each administrative region, province, city and county. The official designations are minzheng ting (for provincial civil affairs department), minzheng ju (city and county bureau) and minzheng ke (city district sub-bureau) (Gaige Kaifang Zhong De Zhongguo Shehui Fuli—Guangdongsheng Zhuanji 1989:13, hereafter Zhuanji). Three themes will be tackled in this chapter. First, I shall identify the whole range of civil affairs duties, emphasizing their service nature and targets. This will give readers a fuller picture of the unique character of China’s welfare bureaucracy. Second, I shall

Social welfare in the first three decades

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trace the evolution of welfare programmes from 1949 to 1978, which gives the historical backdrop to a focused study of welfare advance during the reform period. Finally, I shall review the civil affairs approach to welfare. I shall argue that this represents a case of residualism in welfare.

CIVIL AFFAIRS JURISDICTION To people outside China, the term ‘civil affairs’ is amorphous. Mao Zedong called civil affairs ‘work involving the people’ (Gailun 1987:2, Minzheng Gongzuo Shouce 1982:1– 2, hereafter Shouce). In a similar vein, Marshall Zhu De hailed civil affairs departments (CADs) as ‘the organization departments of the masses’ (Gailun 1987:2, Shouce 1982:1– 2). Still, its meaning is no clearer unless one examines what actually goes on under its rubric. In terms of functions, CADs carried out a wide spectrum of activities. To a significant extent, their motley duties suggest an undifferentiated hybrid agency in charge of home affairs. In 1978, at the brink of the reform, the State Council identified the key tasks for the Ministry of Civil Affairs. These included: preferential treatment for military personnel and their dependants, resettlement of ex-soldiers and retired army cadres, rural disaster relief, social relief and social welfare, territorial boundary administration, marriage registration and funeral reform. In 1982, the work of building up grassroots level administrative organizations was added to the list (Gailun 1987:8). In terms of service nature, civil affairs tasks were formally grouped into three categories: construction of grassroots power organs, civil administration and management, and social security. Whether in the past or in the present, the major duty (zhuti gongzuo) for CADs has always been welfare administration. Construction of grassroots power organs CAD work in this area was confined to the grassroots level. In this zone was located the lowest tier of government as well as mass self-governing structures below it. The first referred to village or township governments in rural areas and city districts (or small cities undivided into municipal districts) in urban areas. Between 1949 and 1954, 210,000 village governments were set up (Ministry of Civil Affairs 1986:3). However, these were absorbed into communes, which, by 1958, were ubiquitous in all rural areas. Communes combined both economic and government functions. For 25 years they were responsible for all facets of rural administration, until their demise in 1983. Replacing them were zhen (township) and xiang (administrative village) governments. To assist administration, villagers’ committees were formed. These were rural equivalents of residents’ committees found in city areas since 1954. Both rural and urban structures were given responsibility for self-government, self-education and self-catering (Gailun 1987:43–6). As they were linked to the public security and household registration agencies within the area, they also played a surveillance role vis-à-vis fellow residents (Dixon 1981:172). The MCA and its predecessor the MIA had four specific tasks in relation to grassroots administration (Gailun 1987:46–9). First of all, they kept watch over the operation of


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grassroots polity and report problems to senior party and government echelons. Second, they summarized experience and promoted the exchange of views and good practice. The third task was to revise and propose needed regulations and guidelines. Finally, they supervised the work of forming and strengthening villagers’ and residents’ committees. In particular, it was the last task that has most salience to welfare as community care was actively promoted since the mid-1980s. Civil administration and management The CAD’s role in this respect was more straightforward. The primary tasks were marriage registration, funeral reform, and division of administrative areas. According to the 1981 Marriage Law and Marriage Registration Regulations, citizens wishing to marry, divorce or resume husband-and-wife relations with former spouses must file their application with the relevant marriage registration office. In rural areas, this meant the village or township government, and in cities, the street office. CADs were responsible for inspecting and directing the work of these offices. Civil affairs cadres also conducted ideological education—to teach socialist ethics concerning love, marriage and family life and the need for birth planning. Such indoctrination was said to contribute to the fostering of spiritual civilization, which, along with material civilization, was considered a pillar of socialist culture (Gailun 1987:299). Regarding funeral reform, the Ministry’s brief was to change old customs and promote new practices. It denounced the traditional preference for lavish funerals and earth burials. In their stead, CADs advocated frugal ceremonies and cremations. MCA work in territorial administration took three forms (ibid.: 66–7). The first was the logistical work of drawing up administrative boundaries and choosing place-names. The second task is to mediate in territorial boundary disputes. Since the reform began, such work has gained importance as the value of land increases. Finally, the MCA facilitated the formation of towns. In this, it advised provincial governments by studying the needs, location and establishment structure of new towns. One purpose of township formation was to satisfy the peasantry’s need for social and cultural amenities. More significantly, towns relieved the pressures for peasant influx into cities by localizing industries and other economic opportunities. Indeed, township development has become a vital part of the country’s economic strategy (Fei 1986). MCA work in this area built up the administrative and resource infrastructures for social development. Social security By far the most important role of the CADs has been directed at social security. Before the reform, four schemes operated by CADs fall under the scope of welfare. These were preferential treatment, resettlement of demobilized personnel, social and disaster relief, and social welfare. Preferential treatment The preferential treatment programme covered five categories of people. These were (1)


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dependants of serving army personnel; (2) dependants of martyrs and deceased soldiers; (3) disabled soldiers and government workers; (4) demobilized army personnel; and (5) retired veterans and army cadres. Preferential treatment or youfu gongzuo originated in the 1930s (Gailun, 1987:68–9). At that time the communist army was based on farmer-fighters who handled the dual tasks of production and war in tandem. When the Red Army were away in combat, the welfare of their dependants became a problem. The solution then was to mobilize the masses to give help—in tilling and giving aid in kind (Gailun 1987:69–70, Minzheng He Shehui Baozhang Wenxuan 1985:343–4, hereafter Wenxuan 1985). This tradition of mass compensation for military service was preserved after the founding of the People’s Republic. By organizing local efforts to help soldiers’ families, the programme clearly served a welfare purpose. It was also useful in maintaining a steady supply of recruits. In the commune period, the major means of mass aid took the form of awarding work points to soldiers’ dependants. Assistance in kind and cash was also given (Dixon 1981:348–9). The contributions from the government were confined to one-off death grants, disability pensions, and institutional treatment and convalescent care for severely disabled soldiers. The statutory programmes have continued. Since household contracting replaced the commune system, the masses needed new incentives to preserve their enthusiasm for military service. This was because without the cushion of the rural collective, peasant households rely heavily on available labour to make a living. In place of the defunct work point system, a new method was used—namely, compensating army households with cash grants. This practice is more congruent with a rural economy run on a cash nexus (Gailun 1987:80, Wenxuan 1985:340). Resettlement of demobilized personnel Since 1958, China has enforced a rigid household registration policy which divided the population into rural and urban residents with little possibility for status alteration and residential mobility. This bifurcated approach was also reflected in the government’s veteran resettlement policy. Upon finishing their army service, demobilized soldiers had to return to their home communities (Jianming Zhongguo Minzheng Cidian 1987:112, hereafter Minzheng Cidian). Rural recruits are given a small gratuity, food allowance, and travel expenses (Dixon 1981:354) to make their way back to their villages. The majority returned to farm work while some became village cadres or joined rural enterprises. In rural resettlement, the role of CADs was facilitative; they coordinated the travel arrangements and provided some cash aid. Direct job placements were not normally provided. If indeed they were, jobs are usually found by the local government. Urban residency status ensured that urban recruits had their employment right protected after finishing national service (Gailun 1987:113). Treatment varied with the original employment status of the recruits. Those who had a job before they enlisted returned to their former work unit (danwei). Should this prove impossible, they would be found another job. Former students or hitherto unemployed youths were allocated jobs by labour bureaux, which apportioned the job quota among various trades and state organs. In assigning work, state policy favoured those with earned merit. This meant that decorated heroes enjoyed first placement rights; their expressed preference would also be


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respected (ibid.: 114). Relief The relief work of the Ministry was divided into disaster relief and social relief. Each year, about 100 million people are affected by natural disasters such as floods, droughts, locusts and frost which caused serious damage to lives and property (Gailun 1987:145). The Ministry was not the only body to fight and relieve disasters; mass mobilization involving state organs at all levels, the masses and the army was the practice during major calamities. Yet ongoing responsibility for disaster relief rested with the MIA and MCA. Three specific tasks are involved in disaster relief work. The first one is assessment. Immediately after a calamity was reported, local CAD officials had to make on-site inspections on the size, nature and extent of the damage, assess the abilities of local communities for mutual help, and estimate the nature and volume of aid needed. Then there was the job of actual dispensation. The policy has been to confine the grant to the worst affected areas and victims. The third task was to review relief policies and their implementation so that suggestions for improvement could be made to party and state organs at a higher level (ibid.: 161–2). Social relief was directed at the alleviation of hardship connected with poverty. Three components were involved: rural relief, urban relief and selfregeneration through work (shengcan zigou) projects. The ‘five-guarantee’ scheme has been the foundation of the rural relief programme. Originally, the ‘five guarantees consisted of food, fuel, clothing, education and burial’ (Gailun 1987:170, Minzheng Cidian 1987:157). In time, the contents have been upgraded. Beneficiaries were and are still confined to the elderly, disabled and young orphans who have no family support, work ability or means of livelihood. This scheme was funded and administered by the locality. In addition, the local collective also dispensed temporary relief to hardship households. Meanwhile, the CAD role was one of monitoring and direction. State relief was confined to areas suffering chronic deficit. In the cities, three groups of residents were eligible for state relief. The first group consisted of ‘three-no’ targets (no family support, no work ability and no means of livelihood) (Minzheng Cidian 1987:168–9). A second group comprised poverty-stricken households; for example, families with a large number of dependants, irregular income or no employment. Finally, aged and frail workers laid off during the austerity drive between 1961 and 1965, who had reached retirement age and were unemployed, were given monthly relief equal to 40 per cent of their former basic wage. Yet another category became eligible after 1978 (Shouce 1982:417–19, Gailun 1987:178). This comprised rehabilitated political deviants, discharged criminals, and rusticated youths who returned from the countryside after the Cultural Revolution, and other ‘bad elements’. Among these, only the ‘three-no’s’ and designated redundant workers are eligible for regular relief from local CADs. Self-regeneration through productive work involved helping natural disaster victims and poor households to overcome their difficulties and regain self-sufficiency through engaging in production (Gailun 1987:185). The work of CADs included educating the


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masses on self-reliance, running pilot projects and promoting sideline pursuits or selfemployment. Such work has been upgraded into a fuller programme of giving development aid to the poor, or fupin. Under the latter programme, CADs not only give loans but coordinate other state agencies to give material and technical support to needy households to start entrepreneurial activities (Gailun 1987:208). Social welfare Social welfare services were traditionally confined to people with ‘three-no’ status. The services came in three forms: social welfare institutions, social welfare production enterprises, and urban community services. CADs ran three types of social welfare institutions. The first type were social welfare homes (shehui fuliyuan), which serve a mixed clientele—mostly old people, also some disabled and orphans. The second type (ertong fuliyuan) were facilities for orphans and abandoned children, most of whom were handicapped. Finally, there were mental hospitals for former soldiers and ‘three-no’ cases. In recent years, under pressure to open up access to other groups, CAD-run institutions have admitted self-financed residents and offered day treatments on a fee-for-service basis (Minzheng Bu Dashiji 1988:757, hereafter Dashiji). Social welfare production enterprises provided employment for the severely disabled who had some ability for work but could not work under an open environment. Since 1980, the state has used a system of income tax relief to encourage the setting up of work schemes for the disabled. Thus, factories where at least 35 per cent of the operational staff are disabled persons are eligible for tax concessions (Shouce 1982:458–9). Beyond the scope of welfare institutions and factories, local communities are also involved in running local amenities for residents. An array of services had been provided since the 1950s, as was discussed above. In the reform period, neighbourhood programmes have expanded many fold. They are now hailed as a new growth point in social welfare for urban residents. Since 1994 they have been subsumed under mutual aid activities. The final welfare programme was relief for vagrants. Multi-purpose centres called reception and dispatch stations provide relief, re-education, deviants-clearance and repatriation services. Those without homes and who repeatedly returned to cities to beg were put to work in settlement farms (Gailun 1987:275, Shouce 1982:476–7).

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF CIVIL AFFAIRS WELFARE, 1949–78 Official periodization runs into five phases (Gailun, 1987:8–9). In each of these periods, I shall comment briefly on the political and economic exigencies at the time and identify the major welfare programmes. The immediate post-revolution phase (1949–52) In this stage, the mammoth task of nation building was complicated by the profound


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destruction that followed the Sino-Japanese conflict (1938–45) and the Civil War (1946– 9). Hence, national priorities were post-war reconstruction, government building, reimposing social order, undertaking land reform, and reviving the national economy. CADs were involved in many of these activities. The First National Civil Affairs Conference held in 1950 laid down the following duties for CADs (ibid.: 7): the formation of democratic government, preferential treatment, resettlement of demobilized personnel, social relief, work relief, hardship subsidy, land administration, household registration, nationality matters, division of administrative areas, territorial boundary mediation, registration of societies, marriage registration, mobilization of civilian workers (in public works projects), resettlement and migration, rehabilitation of vagrants, and reconstruction of old base areas where the early communist guerrillas operated. In addition, CADs oversaw religious and overseas Chinese affairs. In this period, CAD relief work was epitomized by the following slogan ‘achieve selfregeneration through productive work, overcome the hardships by thrift, practise mutual aid among the masses, substitute work for handouts, and to supplement by necessary relief (ibid.). In terms of actual achievements, CADs recorded the following (ibid.: 165–6): repatriation of 1.2 million dispersed persons from eight cities back to their home villages; providing relief for 1.21 million urban residents; receiving 110,000 orphans, disabled and destitute elderly; resettling 240,000 vagrants and rehabilitating 4 million drug addicts, prostitutes and bad elements. A few observations on the work in this period are apposite. First, the bulk of the activities focused on rehabilitation, relief and political control. Not surprisingly such work concentrated on the ‘degenerate elements’ of the old society. Apart from welfare work, the MIA was quite prominent in setting up people’s representative councils in local areas. At year-end 1953, all provinces, one-third of cities and two-thirds of counties had held people’s councils (Minzheng Tongji Lishi Ziliao Huibian 1949–1992 1993:574, hereafter Lishi Ziliao). Second, massive relief was judged undesirable as well as impossible because of paucity of resources. This meant that the stress was on selfreliance and not dependency. Third, missionary welfare work, which had hitheto played a prominent role in the Republican period, was attacked. This paved the way for its abolition in 1953. The charitable services taken over by the civil affairs authorities made up the core of their institutional programmes. Finally, the work with soldiers and veterans received high priority. No less than five regulations relating to preferential treatment were announced in December 1950. The socialist transformation phase (1952–7) This phase coincided broadly with the period under the First Five Year Plan (1953–7). In cities, the nationalization of industries was followed by the organization of handicraft, trade and commerce into collective enterprises. By the end of 1956, 90 per cent of handicraft workers, 99 per cent of privately owned industrial enterprises and 85 per cent of privately owned commercial enterprises were taken into the public sector. At the same time, collectivization of agriculture developed rapidly. By 1956, 96.3 per cent of peasant households had joined cooperatives (A Chronology of the PRC 1986:19, hereafter


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Chronology). On the political front, a number of campaigns took place to consolidate communist dictatorship. First, there was the mounting of the ‘Three-Anti’ and ‘Five-Anti’ compaigns from 1952. The former was aimed at officials: to combat corruption, waste and bureaucratic abuse of power. The latter was directed at industrialists, merchants and the middle classes to eliminate bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, incorrect fulfilment of government commissions, and the use of official economic information for private gain (Kraus 1979:34, 66–7). A milestone was the adoption of the Constitution (1954) (Chronology 1986:12). Then, there was the lynching of intellectuals orchestrated through the short thaw to ‘let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend’, which quickly gave way to the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957) (ibid.: 21, Wong 1979:56–9). A party rectification campaign then followed. These political onslaughts effectively eliminated actual and potential opposition to the regime. Thus by September 1956 the Eighth National Congress of the CCP concluded that the socialist system had in the main been established. The principal contradiction was no longer that between the working class and the bourgeoisie, but that between the rapidly growing economic cultural needs of the people and the ability to meet such needs. Following from this, the main task of the country was to concentrate on developing the social productive forces to meet the economic and cultural needs of the people (Chronology 1986:18). In civil affairs work, this period was marked by an internal reorganization and the convening of two national conferences. In March 1953, the Ministry was restructured. This resulted in a reshuffling of duties among old divisions and the creation of the Director of Relief and Director of Registration (Dashiji 1988:59). The second conference, held in October 1953, endorsed the continuation of the tasks laid down in 1950 (ibid.: 67–8). At the next conference in November 1954, however, the MIA came under severe attack from Vice-Premier Chen Yi. The Ministry was accused of ‘wrongly aspiring to monopolize the work of government construction, thereby usurping the authority of the party and superior government organs’, a veiled reference to the internal power struggle among bureaucratic agencies. As a result, the MIA party group was forced to conduct self-criticism. Thereafter this aspect of MIA work went into eclipse (ibid.: 88–9). In social welfare and relief, CADs continued to stress the principles of encouraging self-reliance, mutual aid, thrift and minimal reliance on state aid. In 1953, the takeover of all former missionary welfare services was completed. A total of 451 charitable undertakings from overseas missionaries (247 from USA, 204 from the UK, France, Italy and Spain) were transferred to the government. Among these, 198 were run by Protestant churches, 208 were by Catholic organizations (Shigao 1986:300, Zhongguo Minzheng Cidian 1990:329). In that same year, the China Blind Persons Welfare Association was also formed under the Ministry to coordinate assistance to blind persons in the country. Regarding self-regeneration through work projects, statistics from 52 cities recorded a total of 1,802 work units in 1954. A total number of 220,000 poor people were given employment (Gailun 1987:190, Shigao 1987:294). In urban relief, because of the nationalization and collectivization drives, new targets were included—old and frail hawkers, rickshaw pullers, religious personnel and dependants of offenders and deviants undergoing rehabilitation (Gailun 1987:166).


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Meanwhile re-education and dispatch work continued. By 1956, CADs had rehabilitated 426,000 vagabonds and prostitutes and ran 90 settlement farms which gave work to 26,000 vagrants (Gailun, 1987:282, Shigao 1986:303). In rural areas, after the conclusion of land reform, peasants were mobilized to join agricultural cooperatives. One way of overcoming resistance and preparing for rural collectivization was to assure peasants that the indigent would receive support from the collective, should they fall on hard times. Thus, the 1956 Model Charter for Advanced Agricultural Producers’ Co-operative affirmed collective commitment of giving relief to members who had no families and had lost the ability to work. This laid the basis for the ‘five guarantees’ (Gailun 1987:170, Zhongguo Minzheng Cidian 1990:283–4). Improving the veteran programmes became more pressing with the conclusion of the Korean War (October 1950-July 1953). In 1955, the government passed the Conscription Law and issued the Resolutions Regarding the Resettlement of Demobilized Military Personnel. The first transformed military service from volunteer service to compulsory conscription (Minzheng Cidian, 1987:107–8). The latter laid down concrete methods of resettlement and preferential treatment. The need for a more vigorous approach stemmed from the failure of earlier efforts. Some areas were amiss in placing veterans in jobs and giving help to the disabled. Many enterprises refused to employ former soldiers, branding them as ‘lacking job skills’, ‘too fond of giving opinions’ and ‘insubordinate’ (Shouce 1982:246). Such problems caused widespread grievances and were a potential threat to the draft. Seen in this light, the new law and resolutions represented a social policy response to ensure the success of conscription. Operating under clearer powers and responsibilities, resettlement work became more routinized and important. Included in the reform was the creation of a regular office under the CADs. This facilitated work execution and probably enhanced their political standing. One example of actual work done included the opening of 66 crippled revolutionary soldiers’ schools, which provided accommodation, health care and vocational training (Shouce 1982:245–51). Between 1949 and 1956, some 260,000 disabled veterans were helped, of whom 60,000 graduated to become workers and 4,000 entered institutions of higher learning (Dixon 1981:346). Furthermore, CADs ran seven institutions which restored limbs for disabled veterans. These later evolved into the artificial limb factories of the present day (ibid.). The socialist construction phase (1951–65) Successful conclusions to the Anti-Rightist and party rectification campaigns allowed the government to devote full attention to economic development. The principal targets of the First Five Year Plan were fulfilled one year ahead of time. During the period 1953–6, the government recorded an average annual increase of 19.6 per cent in the value of industrial output and 4.8 per cent for agriculture (Chronology 1986:19). Such successes prompted Mao to hasten the drive in communization and launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958. The Great Leap called for hyper-speed growth in all sectors of the economy to catch up with the West in ten to fifteen years. Euphoria was short-lived, however. By the following year, the signs of failure, industrial stagnation and decreased agricultural output were apparent. To compound the policy blunders were natural disasters in three consecutive years. The result was a famine of such proportions that


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none of the 1,828 major famines recorded in two thousand years of Chinese history could compare to it. Estimates of the death toll ranged between 15 to 30 million (Ashton et al. 1984, Riskin 1987). The latest estimate puts the number of deaths at at least 30 million (Riskin 1987, Asia Times 1 July 1996). Nineteen sixty also saw the tensions with the Soviet Union erupting into a full-scale split. Not surprisingly, production faltered. The average annual growth rate during the years 1958–62 was 0.9 per cent for agriculture, 0.6 per cent for light industry and 5.7 per cent for heavy industry (as against 4.5 per cent, 13.9 per cent and 21.5 per cent respectively during the First Plan period) (Pairault 1988:29). By 1961, the government was forced to carry out a programme of ‘adjustment, consolidation, filling out and improvement (Chronology 1986:30). In agriculture, there was more decentralization in decision-making. There was also greater tolerance of household cultivation (‘the peasant was returned to his village and the family to its hearth’) (Dixon 1981:203). Likewise, more realistic targets were set for industry. A brief spell of revival soon followed. In late 1964, Premier Zhou Enlai announced the government’s intention to build a strong socialist economy with modern agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. However, this plan was stillborn as one year later political clouds gathered and burst into the storm of the Cultural Revolution. To guide the work of the CADs, three national conferences were held in this period. The Fourth Conference (1958) reflected the spirit of the times by advocating that politics take command in all tasks. Cadres, the masses, veterans and all welfare recipients were asked to take full part in the Great Leap. What this meant in concrete terms was unclear. In the 1959 conference, however, officials reported a slackening of CAD work (Minzheng Cidian 1987:21). Particularly hard hit were preferential treatment and resettlement work. Disruption also resulted from the transfer, hence loss of, civil affairs cadres. At the same time, CADs lost their brief over territorial administration, household registration and migration. In the Sixth Conference (1960), there were renewed calls to strengthen all kinds of civil affairs work. Still, the policy of faithfully following the political line of the Great Leap prevailed. By 1961, economic chaos was such that further austerity was mandated. The MIA, like all state organs, followed the state policy of staff contraction, reducing its establishment from 561 cadre posts to 417. Its cadre training school, set up only two years before, was also closed down (Dashiji 1988:181). Concerning resettlement work, the principle of returning demobilized personnel to their place of origin, ‘from whence you come, to whence you go‘was formally enunciated in 1958 (Shigao 1986:161, Gailun 1987:108). The same year also saw the passing of two more sets of regulations to tighten the supervision of demobilized soldiers and army officers (Gailun 1987:339). CADs were urged to pay closer attention to the ideological work of helping veterans to re-enter civilian life. The salience of such work was reflected by the number of veterans served. By 1958, some 4.8 million were said to be successfully demobilized (ibid.: 102). In 1960, the MIA called a discussion workshop on preferential treatment (ibid.: 75). For the first time, there was the suggestion that such work should combine the efforts of both the state and the masses (rather than relying primarily on the latter). The work in rural areas should achieve three kinds of integration (san jiehe): integrating preferential


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treatment by the masses with government subsidy, integrating political education with material benefits, and integrating the working methods of preferential treatment with the ‘five-guarantee’ programme (ibid.: 75–6). By 1963, the MIA proudly reported that many areas were able to achieve their objectives of ‘assessing case eligibility in spring, reassessing it in summer, and paying out preferential aid in autumn’. In the communes, a yearly average of four billion work points were allocated to eligible peasants, including veterans and soldiers’ families (Shigao 1986:162). Another improvement was recorded in 1965 when rural veterans sustaining Class 3 disability became eligible for longterm subsidy (in place of a one-time disability grant) (Cidian 1987:74–5). This extension pacified a disgruntled group. It was also a step in the direction to improve the lot of former combatants. In social welfare, two developments were important. The first was the clarification of the nature of CAD-run welfare production enterprises. These were to consist of four kinds (Shigao 1986:298): 1 Protective type—units for the blind, deaf and mute. 2 Service type—units producing tools, cultural articles, artificial limbs for the disabled, and crematories. 3 Reform type—rehabilitation units for vagrants. 4 Self-help type—work units for dependants of martyrs, servicemen and poor households. Along with this categorization there was the loss of CAD jurisdiction over other types of work schemes. For example, workshops for the unemployed were transferred to street agencies. At the end of 1959, CADs were managing 6,975 welfare production enterprises employing 319,635 workers (Lishi Ziliao 1993:605). Another advance occurred in institutional care. In 1958, the Fourth Conference proposed that CADs should set up mental hospitals for ‘three-no‘targets. In 1959, most big cities had embarked on such a building programme. Some provinces also started to operate integrated social welfare institutions. By 1965, CADs ran a total of 819 homes, including mixed institutions, children’s homes and mental hospitals (Shigao 1986:301). In social relief, the economic crisis dictated the need for new relief measures. Between 1961 and 1965 many workers were laid off after the fiasco of the Great Leap. Those within this group who had special hardships could apply for a monthly relief. In rural areas, the rudiments of the ‘five guarantees’ had been established in 1956. The National Programme of Agricultural Development promulgated this scheme explicitly: The agricultural cooperative, in treating those commune members who have no work ability and who are widowed, childless or are orphans, should ensure that they get appropriate support in their livelihood, to guarantee food, clothing, fuel, education and burial. (Gailun 1987:170) Apart from categorical assistance, rural relief remained primitive. Families who fell on hard times could apply for relief from the commune welfare fund. Only temporary help, however, was available. During the ‘three years of difficulties’ (1959–61), a partial ‘de-


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communization’ took place. Just as the Great Leap introduced mess halls, nurseries and old people’s homes overnight to socialize family functions, the period of readjustment saw these structures collapse all at once (Whyte and Parish 1984). Family self-help was stressed once again. Government support was confined to subsidies for veterans and disaster relief. The Cultural Revolution period (1966–76) The Cultural Revolution years are now called the ‘ten years of chaos’, ‘the dark age’ and ‘the lost decade’. The causes for the Cultural Revolution and its long-term effects will probably be debated for years. Nevertheless, the immediate impact is clear: intense political struggles, interruption of production (especially in urban enterprises), and social upheavals (Yan and Gao 1986). In the sphere of public administration, the government apparatus became the prime target of attack by red guards, youths mobilized by Mao to seize power from the authorities and to build a new culture. By 1968, the chaos was such that the control of state agencies at all levels had to pass to revolutionary committees formed by representatives from veteran cadres, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and workers (Chronology 1986:45–6). Of immediate relevance to welfare was the abolition of the MIA in 1969 (Dashiji 1988:32), along with the Ministry of Labour (Dangdai Zhongguo de Zhigong Gongzi Fuli he Shehui Baoxian 1987:418, hereafter Dangdai). The work of mass organizations like labour unions and the Women’s Federation was also severely disrupted (ibid.: 323). The assault on the MIA reflected Maoist condemnation of ‘economism’, or the use of economic incentives in motivating workers (Dangdai 1987:91–3, 202–3, Dixon 1981:120). Although the brunt of the attack had been aimed at the Ministry of Labour and trade unions, welfare support of all kinds was denounced (Dixon 1981:121). To Maoist radicals, welfare was a form of bribery used by State Chairman Liu Shaoqi and other ‘capitalist roaders’ to win the support of workers. For its replacement, Maoists advocated self-reliance. Even welfare for the indigent became politically suspect. Apart from these general accusations, however, it was unclear whether there were any specific reasons for abolishing the MIA. What happened after the MIA was demolished? There was no doubt that the effects have been disastrous. In many areas, preferential treatment work was disrupted. Many destitute elders and poor households went without aid. A large number of welfare homes and welfare factories also closed down. As a result, some desperate persons resorted to begging, selling of children and suicides (Lishi Ziliao 1993:615–16). Nevertheless, most local CADs survived; but, in many places, CADs were amalgamated with other departments (Wenxuan 1985:602–3). The beheading of the central apparatus, however, deprived the organization of its leadership. One proof was that during this period, policy directives or circulars appeared to dry up completely, with the exception of a few guidelines on veteran resettlement. There was also the loss of civil affairs posts and personnel, especially at the village or town level. Under such circumstances, local services were left to languish on their own. By 1972, the sorry state of affairs had caused enough concern for the State Council to convene a meeting to discuss what should be done about the work of the defunct Ministry. The outcome amounted to a formal


50

dismemberment (Gailun 1987:76). The Ministry of Finance, which appeared to have gobbled up the MIA in 1969, was given responsibility for the preferential treatment programme. Resettlement work went to the Labour Office under the State Planning Commission, with actual placements handled by provincial authorities. Disability assessment became the joint duty of the Ministry of Health and the PLA. Given such disarray, the human costs must have been immense. All in all, research on this period has been exceedingly difficult. This is due to the annihilation of published data; also, CAD officials were unwilling to disclose what happened. Such an information black-out makes the Cultural Revolution years the least understood phase of civil affairs history.

THE MCA: THE CASE OF RESIDUALISM IN WELFARE The history of civil affairs before 1978 tells the story of a fledgling organization. Steady growth took place in the period 1949–57 and after the end of the Great Leap. During the Cultural Revolution period, however, local CADs were left to their own devices after the Ministry was abolished. Tortuous and devious their fortunes may have been, but the CADs have survived with their welfare functions intact. It is no exaggeration to say that in their first 30 years one can see a welfare bureaucracy in the making. How might one make sense of the Ministry’s welfare work? What approach does civil affairs welfare represent? In essence, I would argue that the civil affairs approach to welfare is one of welfare residualism marked by narrow scope of work and limited direct state involvement. This conclusion was reached in consideration of the following evidence. Service records Civil affairs agencies maintained that they were serving up to one-fifth of the population every year. The claim was based on the estimates of persons eligible for relief. These included over 40 million family dependants of serving soldiers and veterans, an average of 100 million rural residents affected by natural disasters every year, and millions of poverty-stricken households and ‘three-no’ targets qualifying for communal and state aid (Gailun 1987:3). Nevertheless one must note that service targets are not the same as actual recipients. Before the reform period, Ministry statistics on welfare services were scarce, inconsistent and unreliable. Very often the figures fluctuated widely from year to year. There was also no explanation on what definitions were used and how the statistics were compiled. The few sources that were available were not too helpful. For example, since 1990, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has published an annual statistical yearbook, which included some historical data. In 1993, a compendium of civil affairs statistics covering the period 1949 to 1992 was also published (Lishi Ziliao 1993). Nevertheless, these provide at best snapshots of the past. The figures that follow were taken from Lishi Ziliao: On preferential treatment, 296,401 disabled soldiers were said to have received relief


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in 1956; additionally, 404,326 family dependants of martyred soldiers obtained regular relief. In 1966, the numbers of disabled soldiers receiving aid was 659,413 while 963,069 persons from martyr families had regular relief. In 1976, the corresponding figures were 662,193 and 2,562,853 respectively. Relating to urban relief, only figures for three years (1961–3) were available. In 1961, 119,700 urban residents were given regular relief and 397,310 had temporary relief. In 1962, 954,765 residents received regular aid while 1,666,388 had temporary relief. In 1963, the relevant figures were 967,168 and 2,357,854 respectively. Concerning institutional care, CAD-run homes accommodated 64,454 destitute elderly, 27,964 children and 12,681 psychiatric patients in 1959. In 1961, 47,348 destitute elderly, 55,957 children and 14,627 mental patients were in care. The above figures suggest a very modest welfare programme. The number of recipients ran into a few millions rather than over 100 million. Significantly, we do not know the size of the largest group of aid recipients—namely, victims of natural disasters— obtaining relief. Civil affairs spending An alternative glimpse of the size of the welfare effort comes from expenditure data. Here our sources are Lishi Ziliao, the annual civil affairs statistical yearbooks and Dashiji, the Ministry’s chronicle of key events published in 1988 (see Table 3.1)

Table 3.1 Civil affairs expenditure, 1950–80

Group A Year

Group B

Expenditure % of state (100 m. yuan) budget

Expenditure % of state (100 m. yuan) budget

1950

1.32

1.94

0.64

1.94

1951

1.37

1.12

0.93

1.12

1952

2.83

1.61

1.77

1.68

1953

3.55

1.61

2.24

1.65

1954

6.04

2.15

2.84

2.45

1955

4.98

1.05

3.30

1.68

1956

5.69

1.06

3.38

1.86

1957

5.31

1.75

2.90

1.74

1958

3.27

0.80

2.40

0.78

1959

4.48

0.81

2.35

0.80

1960

7.24

1.11

3.23

1.21

1961

9.89

2.69

3.61

2.84


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1962

7.45

2.44

4.22

2.67

1963

8.75

2.58

4.13

2.99

1964

16.15

4.05

4.78

4.27

1965

10.79

2.31

5.16

2.35

1966

8.81

1.63

5.06

1.70

1967

8.21

1.86

5.40

1.85

1968

5.61

1.56

5.62

1.56

1969

6.67

1.27

6.67

1.27

1970

6.53

1.01

6.58

1.01

1971

6.83

0.93

5.29

0.93

1972

8.15

1.06

5.84

1.06

1973

9.97

1.23

6.60

1.23

1974

9.04

1.14

6.82

1.16

1975

12.71

1.55

7.18

1.57

1976

16.17

2.01

7.79

1.87

1977

18.53

2.20

8.60

1.67

1978

13.92

1.25

13.92

1.25

1979

18.80

1.48

18.80

1.48

1980

17.48

1.44

17.48

1.44

Sources: Group A: Minzheng Tongji Lishi Ziliao Huibian 1993:527; Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:196. Group B: Minzhengbu Dashiji Bianji Weiyuanhui (ed.) (1988) Minzheng Bu Dashiji [Key Events in the Ministry of Civil Affairs], Beijing: Minzheng Bu: 734.

When the statistics in Table 3.1 were compared, the first two sources (Group A), edited by the Ministry’s Planning and Finance Department, were identical but differed significantly from those given by Dashiji (Group B). In particular, expenditure figures given by Dashiji are much lower. When it comes to civil affairs expenditure as a percentage of the state budget, the differences between the Group A and Group B figures are narrower. After 1978, Group A and Group B statistics converge. Table 3.2 presents aggregate figures for civil affairs expenditure in different time periods. Except for the period 1963–65 when civil affairs expenditure took up nearly 3 per cent of the state budget, the average state spending on civil affairs was only 1.5 per cent from the First to the Fifth Five Year Plan. My discussion with Ministry officials suggests that the pre-reform statistics were so full of problems that it would be impossible to find out why the discrepancies were so wide. Nevertheless, some comments on the financial data are pertinent. First, ‘civil affairs expenditure’ referred to the total expenditure incurred by the Ministry and local civil


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affairs bureaux. Significantly, these figures included spending on all programmes as well as staffing and administration. The lack of breakdown of welfare spending is especially unfortunate. As a result, one cannot know how much was actually spent on welfare before Deng’s reform. Second, civil affairs spending in absolute terms had been paltry. In 1978, for instance, the total population was 960 million. For that year, the country spent less than 1.5 yuan per head on civil affairs. Third, civil affairs accounted for a minute part of the state budget. For most years before 1980, the civil affairs bill was less than 2 per cent of state spending. This level of spending suggests that civil affairs ranked rather low in the state and party packing order. A useful comparison is with state spending on labour insurance and welfare funds for urban workers, a core investment in welfare under a broad approach. In 1978, total labour insurance and welfare funds amounted to 7,810 million yuan or 13.7 per cent of wages; in 1979, the expenditure was 10,730 million yuan or 16.6 per cent of the wage bill (Zhongguo Laodong Tongji Nianjian 1995:526). In contrast, civil affairs spending for these two years were only 1,392 million yuan and

Table 3.2 Civil affairs expenditure in different periods, 1950–80

Period 1950–2

Total expenditure (100 m. yuan) CAD expenditure as % of state budget 5.52

1.51

1FYP (1953–7)

25.57

1.90

2FYP (1958– 62)

32.23

1.41

1963–5

35.69

2.96

3FYP (1966– 70)

35.83

1.42

4FYP (1971–5)

46.70

1.19

5FYP (1976– 80)

84.90

1.62

Sources: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:196 and Lishi Ziliao 1993:527.

1,880 million yuan. No wonder civil affairs cadres called their unit a poor Ministry or qingshui yamen (a clear water bureau), meaning that there was not much money to go around. A common gripe was that even their wages were lower than cadres working in other ministries. Popular conceptions In the popular mind, the Ministry was widely known as China’s welfare bureau. Nevertheless, civil affairs work was not highly regarded. CAD officials were sometimes derided as being only good at ‘bai bai nian, pai pai qian’ (paying new year visits and giving out money). The taunt derived from the officials’ ritualistic visits to old people’s


54

homes and veteran institutions during Chinese New Year and the paltry grants given to very poor people and natural disaster victims. Their negative image also stemmed from their association with their major clients, China’s les misérables; namely, people without kin and ability to work, poverty-striken households, the disabled and victims of natural disasters. In civil affairs parlance, such groups are called ‘the most pitiable people’ (zui ke lian de ren). Association with these stigmatized groups gave the CADs a tarnished image. In other societies, the unemployed and the homeless suffer a loss of social esteem. In Chinese society where family and work status have been the benchmarks of social identity, deprived persons become virtual pariahs. Were it not for the veteran programmes, targeted at ‘the most adorable people’ (zui ke ai de ren), the perceived status and usefulness of CADs would diminish further. Programme effectiveness Cognizance should also be taken of factors which diminished programme effectiveness. The disaster relief programme was a good example. MIA records indicated that emergency grants did not always go to the most needy, according to policy. Widespread practices of embezzlement, indiscriminate relief and misuse of funds (ranging from diverting state grants to official entertainment, staff housing and bonuses) have been reported (Gailun 1987:155–7, Minzheng Gongzuo Wenjian Huibian 1984, Vol. 2:139–40, 147–50, 692–7, Dashiji 1988:81–2). Of these infringements, the most serious was indiscriminate relief, vividly depicted as ‘drizzles’ and ‘peppering’. These practices stemmed from local cadres yielding to popular pressure to distribute aid equally among neighbours, regardless of need. Cadres readily conceded that the amounts actually received by disaster victims were niggardly and totally inadequate in alleviating hardship. In the government as a whole, the MIA position was a meek one. Over the years, its jurisdiction has shrunk in line with the growing functional specialization of government. Some of its functions, such as administration for elections, nationality, household registration and work schemes for the unemployed have passed to other agencies. More importantly, its marginality stemmed from the government’s policy of decentralizing welfare responsibility to other institutions in society. Of particular prominence were the work unit, urban neighbourhood and commune, which served as agencies for production, distribution and political control. Plainly the CADs’ humble part in welfare evolved from design rather than default. The decision has been a matter of political economy for the party-state. Equally important was the state’s reliance on the family in ensuring social care. This was especially true in rural areas where statutory services were practically nonexistent. This explained why the CAD motto in welfare work was ‘self-reliance by the masses, mutual aid, dependence on the collective, and state help as the last resort’.

4 The new welfare challenge China was in a deep crisis at the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Production in both industry and agriculture was at a virtual standstill. The per capita grain output in 1977 was roughly the same as in 1957 (Xue 1981). In the urban industrial sector, over one-third of all stateowned enterprises were running at a loss in 1976 (Perry and Wong 1985:4) and the unemployed stood at 5.3 per cent in 1978 (Zhongguo Tongji Zeyao 1996:51), a record high for a socialist country. For both urban and rural residents, the Chinese economy was an economy of shortage marked by scarcity of goods and services and almost every necessity of life. Admittedly China had made advances in health, nutrition and education. Neverthless Maoist policies had left the nation backward and impoverished. In 1978, rural per capita income was only 134 yuan per annum; for urbanites, 316 yuan (ibid.). Such meagre standards after three decades of building socialism was deeply frustrating. Politically, the machinery of governance was in ruins. Ideologically too, people’s faith in the party was shaken by constant reversals, power struggles and over-mobilization (Hannan 1985). The death of Mao and the arrest of the Gang of Four, a radical clique led by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, thus saw the country pregnant with strong desires for change. The reforms that emerged were not merely a result of domestic imperatives. New geopolitical perceptions of China’s place in the world, in particular in a smaller international economy, were emerging (Perry and Wong 1985:5–6). Thirty years of economic isolation precluded China from becoming modernized. Meanwhile, the success of Asian countries, notably the Four Little Dragons of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea capitalizing on expanding markets in world trade in the 1960s and 1970s, was instructive. China too could benefit from abandoning its autarkic stance. Similarly normalization of relations with Japan and the United States, the end of the Vietnam war, and the advantage of maintaining leverage vis-à-vis the United States and the Soviet Union made the case for rejoining the world community more compelling than ever. Of course, if China was to develop quickly, Western technology, investments and markets would be indispensable.

GENERAL GOAL AND STRATEGY FOR REFORM At the Third Plenum of the Eleventh CCP Congress in December 1978, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping unveiled plans for a new course. Their platform to abandon such leftist slogans as ‘taking class struggle as the key link’ and ‘politics to take command’ carried the day. China would then shift the general direction towards economic construction. In the following year, the party’s resolutions were ratified by the Second Session of the Fifth National People’s Congress. From then on, China was set on the course of


56

‘readjusting, restructuring, consolidating and improving the national economy’. The overall goal of the reforms was to achieve the four modernizations—in industry, agriculture, science and technology, and national defence. The specific objective was to quadruple the gross value of industrial and agricultural output between 1980 and 2000 and to increase per capita income from about US$300 to US$800, or about 5 per cent each year. In order to reach these targets, the population must stay close to 1.2 billion at the end of the century (World Bank 1985:1–2). Two general principles guided the reform programme: ‘to the outside, adopt openness; to the inside, enliven the economy’ (duiwai kaifang, duinei gaohuo). China then officially entered the era of open door and reform (kaifang gaige). If the general ethos was to enrich the nation, the reforms did not have a well-laid-out agenda. The official strategy was to ‘take a step, then take a look’ (zou yibu, kan yibu) (Vogel 1989). Pragmatic incrementalism, however, did not mean that the steps taken were not big and bold. Touching virtually all areas and all party and government organs, the reforms attempted to introduce change at the systemic level (tizhi gaige), leaving only the socialist structure intact.

THE CHANGING INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT Reforms in the countryside began in 1978. The centrepiece of rural restructuring was reform in agriculture. Operating under the Maoist line of producing grain as the key task and ensuring local self-sufficiency, land was not always farmed to its best advantage. Individual incentive was hampered by an egalitarian work point system of income distribution which did not relate reward to effort. At the same time, the restrictions on private plots, rural markets and sideline production depressed rural income. Nevertheless, the safety valve of easing rural stagnation via migration to city areas was blocked by a rigid system of household registration. All these measures locked the peasants in a rural bondage of tight control, low productivity and bare subsistence (Selden 1993). The household responsibility system was the most notable reform in agriculture. Paradoxically it was not introduced from above. Rather, different forms of work contracting were initiated by the masses. From 1978, Sichuan and Anhui peasants began leasing land from their production teams to farm on a work group, household or individual basis. After delivering the agreed quota of produce, peasants could keep the surplus. These arrangements proved so popular that they spread to other areas. By the end of 1983, household contracting had become universal. In addition, a number of other new agrarian policies were pursued. First, in 1979, state procurement prices for farm produce were raised by 20 per cent. At the same time, agricultural taxes were reduced. Second, the government promoted domestic sideline production. Then, in 1984, the State Council gave permission to revive rural markets and allow the sale of grain outside the peasants’ own counties and provinces. A more radical move came one year later when the state abolished its monopoly on grain purchase and switched to buying on contract (Croll 1987). By and large, the rural economy was reoriented to run on market lines and production incentives greatly improved. Above all, the government was keen to develop rural industries to raise income and absorb surplus

The new welfare challenge

57

manpower. In the last decade and a half, rural enterprises grew at a breakneck speed. By 1993, they were responsible for two thirds of rural output, one third of total national output and one-quarter of export earnings. At the end of 1995, the number of rural firms shot up to 22 million (from 1.5 million in 1978) and their employees to 129 million (from 28.3 million in 1978) (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:387–8), exceeding the workforce in state enterprises. The above measures went hand in hand with institutional reform. The 1982 new constitution provided for the abolition of communes. Beginning in 1983, administrative functions of communes were transferred to township (zhen) or village (xiang) governments, which also had the remit to provide cultural and welfare services. Below this lowest tier of administration, villagers’ committees, the parallels of residents’ committees in urban neighbourhoods, were set up. And then from 1984 peasants were allowed to move into cities and towns for work and business without changing their rural status, on condition that they were responsible for arranging their own food grain, capital and housing (Solinger 1991). The changes in the rural institutional contexts have significant impacts on social policy. With communes gone, an immediate problem was the question of welfare funding. Previously, allotment for collective health and welfare projects came from the commune welfare fund, with money deducted from collective income before allocation to households. When agriculture was decollectivized, money had to be scraped from various sources—taxes, profits from rural enterprises (if available) and household levies after primary distribution (Hussain 1989). Not uncommonly peasant resistance to levies caused a shortage of funds for communal welfare. As a corollary, there have been a number of social regressions. One was the collapse of collective health insurance schemes which had been highly effective in ensuring peasant access to primary health care (Taylor 1988, Henderson 1990, Pearson 1995). Now, medical care in most villages is largely privatized. With a fee for service being the norm, many poor peasants found it hard to afford treatment. Preventive health care also suffered from neglect. The result has been the re-emergence of communicable and infectious diseases in some regions. Concurrently there were losses of valuable human resources such as teachers and doctors, who responded to the government’s call to get rich by changing to more lucrative occupations (Davis 1989). More worrying still was decreasing school enrolment when money-minded parents withdrew their children to work in family farms and village enterprises. Not unexpectedly, most of the drop-outs were girls (Renmin Ribao 25 October 1987, Ming Pao 19 November 1990). The above problems were more severe in some regions than others. With social funding entirely dependent on local budgets, poor rural areas suffered the most. Meanwhile, suburban districts around big cities and areas with good transport and abundant resources are able to afford improved social amenities. More inequality thus pervades social development in China’s vast hinterland. The urban reforms were the second stage of the reform. In December 1984, the Central Party Committee adopted the long-awaited ‘Decisions on the Reform of the Economic System’. In tackling the urban industrial economy, the tasks facing the reformers were more complex. Typically, urban productive and business enterprises came under the ownership of the state or the collective. Attached to different tiers of government,


58

subordinate units were run on bureaucratic fiat. This meant that decisions relating to output, supply of raw materials, capital and sales were made by higher authorities. The other important factor in production—labour—was assigned by labour bureaux. Firms had no power to refuse their quota nor could they dismiss redundant or recalcitrant staff. Their main duty was to fulfil their production quota under the state plan (Walder 1986, Lu 1989). For the economy as a whole, the results were overmanning, waste and inefficiency. However, workers and their dependants came off well. Their right to generous work-based welfare and lifetime employment buttressed the claim of the ‘superiority of socialism’. In the course of the last ten years, the command economy has shaken off many of its fetters. Now, market prices apply except on selected materials and products. Enterprise reforms of various sorts have been tried out. Instead of relying on state funds, nationalized industries are more market-driven. At the same time, because of the stress on competition, many state firms are losing the edge to the more dynamic non-state sector. In 1994, half of them were in deficit; many were on the brink of bankruptcy (Tung 1994). At the end of 1995, the troubles of state firms grew worse: with their debt to asset ratio rising to 83 per cent (Ming Pao 6 December 1995). From 1980 to 1995, the state sector’s share in the national economy shrank from 77.6 per cent to 42.8 per cent (Ming Pao 15 March 1996). The state has also seen fit to adjust the balance of agriculture, industry and tertiary services. In 1978, the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors contributed 28.1 per cent, 48.2 per cent and 23.7 per cent respectively to domestic products; in 1995, the corresponding figures were 20.6, 48.4 and 31.1 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:30). As far as the ownership structure is concerned, a more diversified pattern took shape. In 1978, urbanites worked for either state-owned enterprises (SOEs) (which had 74.5 million employees) or collective-owned enterprises (COEs) (with 20.5 million employees), whereas only 150,000 persons were in self-employment. In 1995, 112.6 million were engaged by SOEs, 31.5 million by COEs, 8.9 million by joint and foreignowned firms, and 20.5 million by the private and individual economy (ibid.: 87). Along the coast, four special economic zones (Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen) and fourteen open cities now vie to attract foreign capital and trade and learn the techniques of modern management. From the viewpoint of social policy, reforms in the employment structure are particularly relevant. The move to enhance enterprise incentives was accompanied by wider use of piece rates and performance-based wages. Especially important were four labour regulations that came into effect in October 1986. These were: ‘Temporary Regulations on the Implementation of Labour Contracts in State-owned Enterprises’, ‘Temporary Regulations on the Recruitment of Workers in State-owned Enterprises’, ‘Temporary Regulations on the Dismissal of Workers in State-owned Enterprises Who Violated Discipline’ and ‘Temporary Regulations on Unemployment Insurance for Workers in State-owned Enterprises’. These regulations have profound implications. The first measure abolished life tenure for new recruits into state enterprises. At the end of 1995, the number of contract employees stood at 64 million, or 40.9 per cent of all urban workers (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:107). The ultimate plan is to turn even tenured workers into contract staff. The second regulation made possible open recruitment and competitive examinations for


59

posts. It also abrogated the system of ding ti which provided the option to substitute an adult child for a parent who left a work unit (Davis 1988). The effect of the third measure was to give firms the right to fire employees who repeatedly disobeyed orders. Grounds for dismissal include such offences as ‘having a poor attitude to service’ and ‘quarrelling with customers’ (Far Eastern Economic Review 16 October 1986). Finally, the fourth legalized unemployment insurance, hitherto anathema to a socialist state. During the period of redundancy, an allowance equivalent to 50–75 per cent of the workers’ basic wage (revised to 120–150 per cent of the local social relief rate in 1993) would be paid, up to a maximum of two years (Renmin Ribao 10 September 1986, South China Morning Post 30 May 1995). Official alarm over escalating social security costs propelled reforms in this area. In 1978, labour insurance and welfare funds for urban workers (covering pensions, health care, hardship subsidies, allowances and collective welfare amenities) amounted to 7.81 billion yuan. They shot up to 65.3 billion yuan in 1988 and 236.1 billion yuan in 1995 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:733). Most significantly, the administration and funding was borne almost entirely by work units, as were welfare services and housing for employees. If enterprises were to become truly competitive, they must reduce their grave social burdens. A key social measure was reform of the social security system. The intention is to produce a truly socialized system with a number of characteristics. First, there should be multiple funding sources so that enterprise profits would not be depleted. Significantly, employees must contribute to social insurance. Second, there should be central pooling of collection and distribution of funds to even out the risks across firms and encourage manpower mobility. This is vital to laying the ground for market competition. Third, a modern social insurance system should compensate all major forms of employment risks including retirement, work injury, health, unemployment and maternity. Finally, the system should, in the long run, be unified. This implies centralized management and ultimately uniform entitlement. Progress has been encouraging in some areas. A comprehensive social insurance system is taking shape. Funding sources have been broadened, including employee contribution to pensions and unemployment insurance. Centralized collection and payment of pensions have been largely achieved. Some areas like Guangdong, Hainan and Shenzhen have combined the administration of pensions, work injury, housing and unemployment in one bureau (Wong and Lee 1996, Chow 1995). In the housing arena, the government has tried to raise rentals to more realistic levels. It has also promoted the sale of commodity housing and provident fund schemes to help workers buy an apartment (Lee 1995).

THE CHANGING SOCIAL POLICY FRAMEWORK Maoist social policy bears a number of idiosyncrasies (Jiang 1992, Wong and Mok 1995). First, its primary aim was the pursuit of equality. Egalitarianism took the form of measures that reduced disparities in living standards and consumption. Wages for industrial workers were tightly controlled. Within a work unit and a locality, income differentials were small. Prices were fixed to protect purchasing power. Second, there


60

was total state intervention in social life. This was especially true for urban folks who enjoyed total protection in exchange for submission to their unit and the state (Walder 1986, Davis 1993). Third, the extent of policy aims to be achieved was attenuated by the country’s development strategy. The latter was marked by the emphasis of accumulation over consumption, primary attention to production rather than questions of livelihood, and low standards and growth targets set for social development. Fourth, there have been definite biases in policy orientation. The most outstanding was the slant towards urban bias and rural neglect (Selden 1993). This was caused by the belief that the key to rapid growth was industrialization. This justified superior reward structures for the urban industrial elite and tolerance of basic standards for the peasantry (Kallgren 1969). Another bias was favouritism to certain types of employees: staff in the state sector (over those in the collective sector), workers in big enterprises (over those in small enterprises), and personnel working in central government (over local state employees). Fifth, the management structure and means of intervention had distinct features. These included high centralization of authority and resources, adoption of administrative means to enforce policy (for example compulsory grain procurement, household registration, price subsidies), and use of mass mobilization and ideological indoctrination. The economic reform changed the whole perception of the proper state-society relationship. In social policy, the iron rice bowl was condemned as an impediment to growth. The new course was founded on a different interpretation of socialist construction—during the primary stage of socialism, the key task was to resolve the conflict between people’s rising material aspirations and the backwardness of the economy, not class struggle. Chinese leaders were fully aware of popular discontent with material shortages and constant sacrifice. After the debacle of the Cultural Revolution, the regime’s legitimacy could no longer rest on socialist ideology. People’s faith in the system could only be restored if they could live better and freer lives. In the past, the authoritarian state had tried to provide everything for the people. It had failed to do so. It now realized it must do less but make a better job of what it does. Besides, what would be the point of socialism if it only meant mass poverty? To reach the goal of ‘material and spiritual civilization’, the state must develop the productive forces, stimulate the incentive of local areas, enterprises and individuals, and make room for private success. Croll uses the imagery of ‘from Heaven to Earth’ to denote the reform movement: to turn the utopian dreams of revolution (‘heaven’) into visions of reality (‘earth’) (Croll 1993). The ripple effects of the reform and the new thinking on the role of the state create the foundation for a major shift in social policy. Under the influence of open door and reform, social policy adjustments produced substantial shifts from the Maoist mode. Five features mark the post-reform paradigm of social policy. First, efficiency replaced equality as the primary goal of social distribution. Empirical examples are sundry: the use of bonuses and piece rates, tolerance of unemployment and bankruptcies, cost reduction in social security, and encouragement of markets in labour, housing, health and to a lesser extent education. More fundamentally, official will to ‘let some people get rich first’ and ‘let some areas get rich first’ amounted to an acceptance of inequality, which widened considerably in the process. Meanwhile the state was conscious of the dangers of forsaking equality. To mitigate the effects of extreme


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disparity and the hardship of the needy, social policy was expected to abet social stability and reduce conflicts. The work of civil affairs welfare is pertinent in this respect. Relating to the extent of social intervention, the state renounced its role in giving comprehensive guarantees to people’s livelihood. Accordingly, control of civil life was relaxed and autonomy of local areas and social groups increased. The wish to reduce state meddling stood out clearly in the spread of household contracting and raising the autonomy of firms over recruitment, dismissal, pay and welfare. More important is the policy to ‘socialize social welfare’, aimed at a wider sharing of involvement in administration and financing in health, education, housing and welfare. Delegating power to lower-level units eased the burden of the state. It was also seen as a better way to meet needs more flexibly and appropriately. Readjustment of the extent of policy aims to be attained was another feature. Instead of pursuing growth for its own sake, the ultimate rationale for growth was improved welfare of the people. Consequently, questions of livelihood, social consumption and social development received more attention. A superficial indicator was the renaming of the country’s five year plans as plans for social and economic development. More significant was increased state investment in education, health, housing and welfare. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between social development and economic growth remains substantial. In social welfare, under dire resource constraints, the state was not able to provide even a safety net for the poor. Likewise, the failure to enforce compulsory education and provide affordable health care in rural areas did not suggest priority on social issues. In terms of policy orientation, there was a clear tendency towards devolution. Peasants now enjoy more freedom than before, as do production units. However, the policy to pass more social responsibility to communities has increased spatial inequality (Henderson 1990, Lee 1995, Cheng 1995). Poor areas came off badly, with less aid coming from the centre. Meanwhile, the urban bias has remained as strong as ever, if not more so, because of declining investment in agriculture. Pampered treatment of the industrial elites has continued. More and more, the economic performance of firms has emerged as the key factor determining pay and welfare. Modifications were also made in organization and style of management. First, there were definite moves to devolve social responsibilities, as said before. Second, instead of using direct intervention, the state now encourages individual effort and denounces dependency. To stimulate effort, material incentives replaced moral platitudes as the motivating force for hard work. Third, commodification of major social services became more common. Wider adoption of service charges has taken root incrementally. Finally, service-units of all types were expected to rely less on state grants and become more adept at raising incomes. The marketization strategy has been a double-edged sword. On the positive side, there were gains in the range and quantity of services as well as improvements in quality. At the same time, people who lost out for example the poor, backward areas and less competitive units—suffered discrimination. Clients in the residual welfare system were particularly disadvantaged.


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SOCIO-POLITICAL CHANGES Besides transformations of the institutional and policy contexts, the social care system was subject to other pressures. The family system, the primary mechanism to satisfy individual needs, has undergone its own quiet revolution. Some of the pressures it experienced did not stem from the reform. Indeed the onslaught of industrialization and modernization could be traced to the late Qing dynasty. Over the last century, the family as an institution has braced changes faced by other developing societies—family nucleation, higher labour participation of women, rising divorce and weakened family values. Likewise, human ageing gathered momentum with improvements in living standards and health care. At the end of 1995, the population aged 60 and above reached 120 million, a staggering number. This was 9.5 per cent of the population (Zhongguo Minzheng December 1996:7). The attendant costs for retirement pensions, medical and personal care are only too obvious. In the post-Mao period, three state policies have aggravated family burdens. The first concerns the birth planning policy of 1979. Determined to correct past mistakes of unbridled fertility and ensure the attainment of economic targets, the state adopted the draconian policy of restricting married couples to have only one child. Although this was later relaxed to allow rural families to have a second child after a few years’ interval, applying the brakes so abruptly created many problems. In the short-run, major concerns included female infanticide, abuse of women who did not bear male children, abandonment of female and handicapped babies, and the problem of educating single children (‘the spoiled brats’). Deeper worries lie in the future. When the new family pattern—the four (grannies) two (parents) and one (child) family—takes shape, domestic resources will be hard stretched to cater for dependent elders, not to mention the prospect when wider kin relationships like uncles, aunts and cousins disappear if everyone is a single child. Another concern is the difficulty of finding wives for men, a demographic outcome of unbalanced sex ratios. The second policy concerns population migration. For over thirty years, peasant flows to cities had been virtually halted (Christiansen 1990, Wong 1994b). When mobility controls were lifted to allow rural labourers to find work in cities and towns, many young peasants voted with their feet. The 1990 census counted 70 million floating population. In the mid-1990s, the estimates range from 80 to 100 million. The ramifications on family life are noteworthy. On the one hand, families have much to gain from home remittances. On the other, urban migration split up families and created problems in old age care and socialization of children. Likewise, the relief of vagrants was a big headache to civil affairs departments. Third, the household contracting system created new opportunities but also risks at the same time. With the stripping away of the collective umbrella, communal support is harder to get, except perhaps in prosperous areas. The combined effects of modernization and official policies mean that Chinese families, especially rural ones, became more vulnerable. Inflation made matters worse. Living standards for people on fixed and low incomes fell even further behind. The reform decades also saw a weakening of the state protective role. In the hope of relaxing the grip of an over-centralized system and to increase local incentives, the central government has undertaken a programme of devolving fiscal powers downwards


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since 1980. A direct result has been the diminution of central authority. When the periphery received more power over the use of their incomes, they also became less obedient. The other implication was diminished ability to effect regional redistribution and ensure implementation of key projects and policies. These changes affected the civil affairs machinery as well. With little chance of getting more money from the treasury, welfare agencies had to look for allies to share their welfare burden.

WELFARE SOCIALIZATION OR WELFARE PRIVATIZATION? Since the mid-1980s, civil affairs authorities have openly espoused a policy to ‘socialize social welfare’ (shehui fuli shehuihua). What this means is that in welfare matters people should eschew dependence on the state. Instead, all strata of society—local communities, mass organizations, work units, families and individuals—must be actively involved. According to former Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Zhang Dejiang, societal participation can take a number of forms (Zhang 1990). First, communities and social groups should take part in service provision and management. Second, they should contribute to the funding of social programmes. Third, citizens can serve as volunteers or engage in acts of mutual help. Fourth, the scope of services should widen to meet other requirements of the masses. In corollary, this means that right of use should no longer be confined to old targets; people with demonstrated needs should be served if they can pay. In short, joint effort and diversification should be the principle in administering welfare and relief when needs are far too numerous for the state to tackle on its own. In the West, the retreat of state management of the economy and public services has been referred to as privatization, an emergent trend since the 1970s. Reflecting a rethinking and redrawing of state-civil society relationships, the impetus came from political aversion to the ongoing ability and propriety of large-scale state intervention in public life. The more prominent concerns centred on the slowdown of economic growth, uncontrollable public budgets, inefficient state industries and public services, and insatiable social demands. In the social services, privatization need not mean denationalization. It can be understood in a general sense as a rolling back of the activities of the state. According to Le Grand and Robinson, this can happen in three ways; namely, through reduction in state provision, reduction in state subsidy, and reduction in state regulation (Le Grand and Robinson 1985). The United Kingdom offers a textbook case. Where public provision is concerned, the record consists of a programme of sale of council houses, closure of local authority residential homes, expansion of private medicine, contracting-out of hospital cleaning and catering, use of education vouchers, and promotion of private health insurance and charity. In financing, cuts have been made in subsidies to remaining council tenants, charges introduced for services under the National Health Service, grants replaced by loans to university students, and subsidies lowered for public transport. Finally, examples of deregulation can be found in the easing of rent controls and the use of quasi-markets whereby large chunks of state services are now carried out by newly created public ‘agencies’, voluntary bodies, and private contractors alongside the government (Hills 1990, Johnson 1990, Mishra 1990). In order that loadshedding can take place, the state can use a number of methods. Oyen


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distinguishes at least five ways of trimming state involvement in social policy: (1) use of proprietary services, (2) subventing voluntary agencies to produce services instead of direct state provision, (3) fee-charging, (4) de-institutionalization and wider use of family, community, and informal care, and (5) curtailing national economic management and returning nationwide programmes to local communities (Oyen 1986). To varying extents, these strategies found common acceptance across Western Europe in the 1980s. In Eastern Europe, privatization of social care has also taken hold (Deacon and Szalai 1990, Deacon 1993). To Chinese leaders and academics, the term privatization (siyinghua or siyouhua) arouses much discomfort. ‘Private’ has connotations of selfishness and disregard for the public good. ‘To privatize’ smacks of capitalism and bourgeois liberalization, and for the state to engage in this implies an abdication of public duty. Due to these sensitivities, ‘privatization’ has not found its way into the official lexicon. Where a like approach has been followed, as in market housing, unsubsidized flats are called commodity housing (shangpin fang). Similarly, the authorities are more tolerant of private medicine, private schools, and private labour markets and allow them to be called as such. Meanwhile the state make no bones about the need for enterprises and public agencies to follow market demands, improve operational efficiency, confront competition, forgo dependence on the state, and charge fees for services. In short, there is ready acceptance of referents such as ‘marketization’ (shichanghua) or ‘commodification’ (shangpinhua). Semantics apart, the presence and extent of privatization can be gauged by examining such indicators as state provision, funding and regulation. Reduction of state provision On the score of provision, direct state input has always been of subsidiary importance. Under Deng, community-run programmes became more important and overtook state amenities in terms of the number of units, beds and residents (Table 4.1).


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Table 4.1 Social welfare institutions, 1979–95

1979

1988

1994

1995

8,235

39,103

43,240

43,074

765

2,103

2,150

2,182

7,470

37,000

41,090

40,892

195,000

695,800

954,896

975,566

63,000

131,800

167,870

173,283

Community-run

132,000

564,000

787,026

802,283

Total no. of residents

165,000

542,000

736,378

747,240

59,000

n/a

129,844

133,574

106,000

n/a

606,534

613,666

Total no. of homes CAD-run Community-run Total no. of beds CAD-run

CAD-run Community-run

Sources: Dashiji 1988:757 for 1979 figures; Shehui Baozhang Bao 14 April 1989 for 1988 figures; China Statistical Yearbook 1996:724 for 1994, 1995 figures. Note: CAD=Civil Affairs Department.

In 1979, state-run homes accounted for 9.3 per cent of units, 32.3 per cent of capacity and 35.8 per cent of residents. In 1995, its share fell to 5.1 per cent of units, 17.8 per cent of beds, and 17.9 per cent of inmates. Similar things are happening in the area of welfare production (Table 4.2). In the last decade and a half, there has been an explosion of welfare factories under a policy of tax exemption. In 1981, state-run welfare enterprises outnumbered society-run units by two to one and the total workforce by three times. In 1985, the pattern was reversed. State-run welfare factories made up 15 per cent of units, 32.8 per cent of total employees, 35.4 per cent of disabled workers and 37.2 per cent of added value. In 1995, the respective percentages declined even more steeply to 12.8, 16.6, 15.8 and 10.8 per cent.

Table 4.2 Social welfare enterprises, 1981–95

CAD-run No. of units

No. of staff

Society-run

Disabled workers

TAV 100 m. Y

No. of units

No. of staff Disabled workers

TAV 100 m. Y

1981

1,022

135,000

n/a

n/a

552

51,586

n/a

n/a

1982

2,214

219,189

833,051

7.0

12,554

448,829

151,250

11.8

1986

2,551

236,371

89,421

8.0

17,211

637,747

225,708

19.6


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1987

2,976

250,329

96 6,605

10.4

24,714

875,974

337,944

35.2

1988

3,692

282,947

106,096

16.4

36,701 1,180,589

875,974

65.8

1989

4,595

310,345

119,626

18.9

36,864 1,192,719

494,182

85.3

1990

5,208

325,461

124,630

21.0

36,517 1,245,072

512 ,941

99.2

1991

6,329

352,112

136,183

28.9

37,889 1,342,064

565,139

137.4

1992

6,798

373,412

142,473

40.0

42,985 1,528,266

635,700

224.7

1993

7,232

390,619

147,211

33.2

49,649 1,672,141

695,046

260.0

1994

7,373

382,519

151,523

36.9

52,805 1,800,262

757,307

315.9

1995

7,734

368,636

148,551

42.7

52,503 1,845,838

790,671

351.3

Sources: 1981 figures from Minzheng Gong zuo Wenjian Huibian 1984, Vol. 1:40–5; 1985–95 figures from China Statistical Yearbook 1996:727 Note: TAV=total added value (in 100 million yuan); n/a=not available.

A new growth point in urban service provision was the birth of shequ fuwu (community services). Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the MCA, neighbourhood programmes sprouted rapidly. In 1988, community services were available from 69,700 service points across Chinese cities. The number grew to 85,000 in 1990 (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1991:4). At the end of 1995, there were 110,000 social service facilities and 234,000 service outlets offering housework, repair and livelihood services (convenience services or bianmin fuwu) to local residents (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:218). Significantly, these are run and funded by neighbourhood agencies. In sum, the mix of state and non-state provision has changed radically since the reform. Before, state programmes, though not dominant, were quite significant. Now, local communities are the major providers. The eclipse of the state was not caused by any change of ownership. As far as is known, no selling of public assets, service closure, or contracting-out has taken place, although signs of exhaustion and stagnation were visible towards the end of last decade. Higher expectation on local contribution was the result of the policy of socialization. In the process, the state has preserved its provider status but also assumed, increasingly, the role of midwife, facilitator, and enabler to raise the variety and quantity of services. Notwithstanding such endeavour, by failing to keep pace with rising needs, the state has relinquished its lead. In this sense, privatization as a gradual retreat of the state in service provision is unmistakable. State reduction in funding In funding, the two major sources of welfare funds in the past were state allocations and collective funds. State funds came from central and local governments, while collective finance originated from incomes of rural communities (communes, brigades and teams) and urban neighbourhoods (Wong 1990c). Between 1950 and 1978, the state allocated a total of 13.9 billion yuan to civil affairs (minzheng shiye fei), inclusive of spending on all programmes (Dashiji 1988:734). In most years, civil affairs spending averaged less than


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2 per cent of public spending (see Chapter 3, p. 58). The post-reform funding approach can be summarized as the policy of using ‘multiple levels, multiple channels and multiple means’ (duo cengci, duo qudao, duo xingshi) of financing. By multiple levels is meant both vertical tiers (central government, province, county/city, township/street organizations, villager/resident committees) and horizontal sectors (state, collectives, groups and individuals) in the welfare nexus. Multiple channels refer to diverse sources of funding including, inter alia, funds allocated by different tiers of administration, retained profits from rural and neighbourhood enterprises, levies and contributions from the masses, donations, income generation by service units, welfare funds, and other sources. Finally, multiple means denote various methods of raising income, for instance fee-charging, entrepreneurship, holding auctions and performances for charity, selling welfare lotteries, creating designated funds, and so on (Zhuanji 1989). In a nutshell, the aim is to husband all available resources and exploit all possible means to boost revenue. State financing has been marked by a number of bold initiatives. First, control has been loosened over the use that can be made of disaster relief funding. Formerly, it could only be spent as grants to disaster victims, but since 1983 the government has allowed some of the funds to be diverted to loans to help poor households start a business or production project. The programme of fupin (development loans) was rationalized as turning ‘dead money’ (grants) to ‘live money’ (loans) when recovered money would be used to help other needy families. Between 1982 and 1987, 4.2 billion yuan was released as loans, equivalent to 57 per cent of all funds budgeted for natural disaster relief (Dashiji 1988:756, 750, Shehui Baozhang Bao 25 March 1988, 7 October 1988 and 14 April 1989). Second, the state popularized the use of the contract responsibility system in disaster relief budgeting. What this means is that local areas that take part in this scheme manage their budgets within pre-set limits. While they can keep any unspent portion, they give up the right to ask for extra money, except under dire circumstances. From 1984 onwards, the Ministry also withheld disaster relief grants from rural counties with annual per capita income above 400 yuan (Zhongguo Jingji Tizhi Gaige Shinian 1988:560). Effectually central funds are restricted to truly needy areas. A more profound change came in 1985 in the guise of an administrative notice: The Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Finance Joint Circular Regarding Adjustment to Preferential Treatment and Relief Standards. The gist of this announcement was to confer autonomy in standard-setting and financing to local areas, with the central government only concerning itself with statutory grants to martyrs, disabled soldiers, and incapacitated veterans in institutions (Minzheng Fagui Xuanbian 1986:253). The message that stands out loud and clear is a hands-off approach to local programmes. From then on, local governments must foot their own welfare bill and match supply to suit local conditions. As far as collective funding is concerned, the masses have long shouldered aid to soldiers’ families, poor households and ‘five guarantee households’ out of the welfare funds of production brigades and teams. After decollectivization, local communities paid for the support of needy groups through special levies, which can be regarded as a kind of welfare tax. As conditions across the country vary widely, actual methods of levying also


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differ. The obligation to contribute to communal welfare is usually written into the contract that peasants sign with the local collective (township/village or villagers’ committee) (Shehui Baozhang Bao 8 January 1988). The form of payment can be in grain or cash. Many areas have separate collections for soldiers’ dependants and ‘five guarantee households’. Levies are assessed according to the size of land holding, the number of labour power or a combination of both (Zhuanji 1989:87–8, 106, 115–17). Very often, assessment methods are contingent on the nature of economic pursuit. For example, there are set formulae to calculate levies on incomes derived from farming, forestry, grazing, commerce, industry, fishery, transportation and construction. In districts where rural industries are highly developed, as in the Pearl River Delta, enterprise profits replace direct levies as the means of local financing (Wong 1990c, 1994a, 1995a). Most rural areas have now centralized the collection and use of levies at the township or village level. This spreads the burden across a wider area (versus pooling on a brigade basis in former times). Places which have set up sound accounting systems practise pooling at the county level, allowing for even wider inter-communal sharing. In contrast, the more ‘backward’ areas can only pool resources within the scope of villager committees. Rich areas have dispensed with household levies altogether. Suburban Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shunde in Guangdong Province have gone even further. There, the majority of peasant dwellers have formed rural shareholding cooperatives to manage their common property. Under this arrangement, peasants organize their respective production factors—land, funds, materials, skills and labour—into cooperative projects or enterprises. The profits earned are more than enough to pay for schools, clinics and old age homes. Additionally shareholders are paid year-end dividends, which may be as high as several thousand yuan a year (Tung 1994, Wong 1995a). Under such circumstances, the livelihoods of homeless elders and veterans become a non-issue. In general, raising local funds through levies is not a good way of financing. Levies are difficult to collect. They also have an ad hoc character. Peasant resistance, which is indicative of a weakening of communal solidarity, is not uncommon (Hussain 1989). In the early 1990s Chinese peasants have suffered a surfeit of official taxes, levies, fines and service charges while experiencing a fall in incomes (Ash 1991, Yan 1994). With the aim to reduce peasant burdens under repeated demands from the top leadership, some areas have halted the collection of welfare levies, much to the dismay of civil affairs cadres and the poor (Zhongguo Minzheng January 1994:13). Because of these shortcomings, levies are at best provisional measures to be replaced when more permanent arrangements, like a sound system of local taxation, evolve. The role of collective financing will not be complete without mentioning the community service programme. Funding for shequ fuwu comes from local income with only token grants from the state. Because of inadequate resources, neighbourhood agencies find it increasingly difficult to run free services (Zhongguo Minzheng August 1991:19–20, March 1992:18–9, Zhongguo Shehui Bao 28 July 1992, Wong 1993, Chan 1993, Liu 1995). Nowadays the trend is to provide at-cost or profit-making amenities. For residents with means, convenience services are cheaper than services in the market. Nevertheless they are plainly beyond the reach of poor households.


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Table 4.3 Grants and subsidies from communities, 1979–95 (in 10,000 yuan)

Total grants and subsidies

To veterans

To ‘Five’ guarantees’ households

To poor households

1979

55,354

20,394

16,114

18,846

1980

63,375

31,459

15,447

16,469

1981

81,626

47,256

20,368

16,003

1982

104,801

58,751

28,455

17,595

1983

109,017

59,589

33,867

15,562

1984

121,152

62,263

41,866

17,023

1985

147,252

71,784

58,605

16,863

1986

158,137

75,396

62,432

20,320

1987

183,853

81,953

76,072

25,828

1988

205,511

88,082

84,239

33,191

1989

200,309

92,486

86,248

21,593

1990

222,282

99,827

102,360

20,094

1991

238,201

106,727

112,842

18,631

1992

255,916

117,023

119,555

19,339

1993

309,667

132,068

145,994

31,605

1994

360,661

156,339

177,358

26,964

1995

421,159

194,379

197,437

29,343

+761%

+953%

+1,225%

+156%

1995/1979

Source: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:224.

Overall, welfare funds injected by local communities have risen substantially over the last sixteen years (Table 4.3)—spending on the core welfare schemes rose by 761 per cent. The accretion rates for grants to ‘fiveguarantees households’ and veterans were more remarkable, while subsidies to poor households went up rather modestly. Seemingly, other than grants to people whose situations and needs were well-defined, discretionary aid from neighbours has become less reliable. Table 4.4 compares state and community spending on welfare schemes over the same period. In 1985, state funds made up less than a third of total expenditure. Five years later, state input has grown appreciably, accounting for 47.4 per cent of relief funds. The state and communal share remained largely the same in 1995 as in 1990. Apparently, fiscal decentralization has had its limits. By the end of the last decade, the ability of localities to relieve their needy has been stretched to the limit. Apart from state and collective funding, the government has stepped up the


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exploitation of new sources of income. Instead of passive reliance on state grants, welfare homes and enterprises were urged to be more enterprising in raising revenue. When grants from the government were short, greater self-sufficiency was the key to survival. It also made possible improvement of services, better food for inmates and bonuses for staff. Two methods have been adopted: wider fee-charging and profit-making activities. In the last decade, civil affairs welfare institutions have offered some services on a fee for service basis. For example, local people could get

Table 4.4 State and community spending on welfare and relief, 1985–95 (in 10,000 yuan)

1985 For soldiers and dependants

1990

1995

106,983

242,732

435,359

by the state

35,328 (33.0%)

141,163 (58.2%)

240,980 (55.4%)

by communities

71,655 (67.0%)

101,569 (41.8%)

194,379 (44.6%)

28,688

38,744

56,210

by the state

11,826 (41.2%)

18,650 (48.1%)

26,867 (47.8%)

by communities

16,863 (58.8%)

20,094 (51.9%)

29,343 (52.2%)

55,196

85,052

160,121

6,693 (12.1%)

11,851 (13.9%)

22,277 (13.9%)

48,503 (87.9%)

73,201 (86.1%)

137,844 (86.1%)

27,483

60,245

145,599

by the state

17,251 (62.8%)

30,793 (51.1%)

85,189 (58.5%)

by communities

10,232 (37.2%)

29,452 (48.9%)

60,410 (41.5%)

218,349

426,772

797,289

71,097 (32.6%)

202,456 (47.4%)

375,313 (47.1%)

147,252 (67.4%)

224,316 (52.6%)

421,976 (52.9%)

For poor households

For ‘three-no’s’ living at home by the state by communities On social welfare homes

Total funding by the state by communities

Source: China Statistical Yearbook 1996:725.

rehabilitation treatment from hospitals and old age homes. Self-financed admission into social welfare homes has also become possible. As Table 4.5 shows, liberalizing entry into state-run institutions, as against the old practice of admitting only the homeless and indigent, has resulted in a modification of resident profile. In 1979, self-financed access to social welfare homes and children’s homes was almost impossible; by 1991, paying clients accounted for over a third and over a quarter of the residents of those homes. Psychiatric services were more open; even in 1979, 37 per cent of in-patients paid for their stay. As far as self-financed admission was concerned, 1991 was the peak year. In community homes too, some 3,700 persons have bought their way into care, with fees totalling 2.54 million yuan (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 26 March 1993). After 1991, the


71

proportion of paying inmates went down. For ordinary citizens, long-term care is simply too expensive. Regarding entrepreneurship, practices are as multifarious as agencies are capable. They vary from such modest ventures as selling home-grown vegetables, flowers, fruit, fish, and chickens to ambitious undertakings like

Table 4.5 Self-paying residents in CAD-run institutions, 1979–95 (%)

1979

1983

1986

Social welfare homes

5.13

6.17

9.05

Children’s homes

3.10

10.02

14.59

37.21

47.61

51.81

Psychiatric hospitals

1988

1991

1994

1995

35.2

23.1

29.8

24.0

27.5

7.9

29.8

55.0

58.6

51.9

29.8

Sources: Dashiji 1988:79–86 for 1979–86 statistics; Shehui Baozhang Bao 23 June 1989 for 1988 figures; Zhongguo Minzheng July 1992:25 for 1991 figures; Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:108–13 for 1994 figures. In 1995, the total number of self-paying residents was 29,545 (total: 99,624) but no breakdown into types of homes was listed, see Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:260.

running factories, holiday resorts, and restaurants. In 1991 state-run homes earned 77.4 million yuan from such activities, 16 times more than in 1979 and equal to 21 per cent of state expenditures. For all homes, the output value in 1991 was 830 million yuan, with profit running to 130 million yuan. In 1992, 70 per cent of old age homes in China were engaged in profit-making activities on the side (Zhongguo Minzheng July 1992:24, Zhongguo Shehui Bao 11 May 1993). The business fever shot up following Deng Xiaoping’s tour to the south in spring 1992. During my visit to the Pearl River Delta in 1993, municipal civil affairs bureaux were busily setting up joint ventures with local and foreign investors, running trading companies, developing real estate, or commercializing burial and wedding services. Indeed, no business (save perhaps illicit ones) seems to be off limits (Wong 1995a). The fact that few of them have anything to do with welfare seems immaterial. An interesting innovation was the launching of welfare lotteries in 1987 with the purpose of raising money for charity (35 per cent of proceeds for prizes, 15 per cent for administrative expenses and 50 per cent for welfare). By 1992, the authorities had sold lottery tickets worth a billion yuan and allocated 300 million yuan to welfare schemes (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 16 March 1993). In 1995, 710,493 tickets were sold, with welfare projects taking 1,363 million yuan (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:402). In 1993 and 1994, some cities in Guangdong (Zhongshan, Nanhai, Shunde, Shenzhen and Guangzhou), Zhejiang (Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jiaxing and Huzhou) and Sichuan (Chengdu) introduced a new lottery—zixuanshu fuli jiangjuan—modelled on Hong Kong’s Mark Six betting tickets (Ming Pao 5 May 1994). Although publicity had been deliberately low-key, they became vastly popular among local people, especially in Guangdong where, allegedly, punters outside the province bought them through


72

underground channels. Then the State Council acted. At the Tenth National Civil Affairs Conference in May 1994, Premier Li Peng condemned the Mark Six as abetting gambling and spiritual pollution. Sales have since been banned and have not resumed to the end of 1996. In private, Guangzhou officials were dismayed—the ban cut off much-needed cash for welfare. After its launch in 1993, Mark Six proceeds raised some 500,000 yuan for community services (personal interview, 1994). Without this income, the municipal government had even less to give to community projects. In the days of the Cultural Revolution, China prided itself on its self-reliance in solving domestic problems. The most extreme proof of this independent spirit was its stubborn refusal of foreign aid after the catastrophic Tangshan earthquake which killed 240,000 people in 1976 (Sunday Morning Post 7 July 1996). Since that time, a fundamental change in attitude occurred, concomitant with state resolve to strengthen economic ties with the West. In 1980, the State Council authorized the acceptance of United Nations donations for the relief of typhoon victims in Guangdong (Dashiji 1988:345). Thereafter, disaster relief aid from various OECD countries followed. From 1983 to 1988, China received US$50 million international aid (Cui 1989:178). Huge donations poured in after the disastrous floods in the eastern provinces in 1991 and in the southern provinces in 1994 (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 13 October 1992). Smaller ones continued in later years. The second source of donations came from overseas Chinese communities. Residents in Hong Kong and Macao were the prime benefactors. Actually giving money to public welfare in one’s place of origin was a time-honoured custom among Chinese emigrants. As the home of 80 per cent of overseas Chinese, Guangdong and Fujian received the lion’s share of such generosity. Finally, domestic contributions also went towards the support of welfare projects. In the last few years, many cities have staged donation drives, such as walks for charity and welfare performances and auctions. The donations were partly voluntary and partly mobilized. Examples of the latter kind were solicitations from enterprise owners, profitable firms (and not so profitable ones) and common citizens. Such collections sometimes resembled pro rata levies and were a source of annoyance to firms and families. In 1992, the sum of domestic and foreign donations amounted to 2.3 billion (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1993:390). In 1994, they amounted to 391 million yuan (ibid.: 408). Between 1991 and 1995, total donations reached 30 billion yuan (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:140). The establishment of the China Charity Federation (CCF) (Zhonghua Cishan Zhonghui) is particularly noteworthy. It was founded by former Minister of Civil Affairs Cui Naifu and other retired welfare cadres. Designed to be the largest national comprehensive charity organization approved by the Chinese government, the agency’s function is similar to the United Way in the United States and the Community Chest in Hong Kong. Government support for its creation signals its admission that state effort alone will never meet needs adequately and that vigorous tapping of donations from society at large is essential. It also symbolizes a major value reversal. Charity or cishan used to be viewed negatively, taken to mean almsgiving, class patronage, social control, and imperialism (in the case of overseas missions). Now philanthropy is openly championed by the state. Additionally, there has been a proliferation of special funds. Variously called mutual benefit funds, social security funds, social welfare funds or social insurance funds, these


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were special collections set up for welfare purposes. Such funds had multiple funding sources. Many incorporated a contributory element when individuals and households paid monthly premiums to build up their eligibility to borrow, withdraw money for a contingency, or draw a pension. Profitable enterprises or wealthy individuals were also pressed to contribute. Civil affairs departments sometimes gave start-up grants or contributed to administrative costs. Some of these were insurance schemes, covering, for example, the loss of crops, houses or draught animals. Some also gave temporary handouts to the destitute and disaster victims. By mid-1988, over 70,000 funds were in operation with accumulated reserves of 300 million yuan (Shehui Baozhang Bao 18 November 1988). In 1995, 196,772 funds were in operation. Among these, rural pension schemes had reserves of 5,950 million yuan while 3,670 million yuan was collected by cooperative insurance funds (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:217, 290–1). To sum up the developments in welfare funding, three important trends can be observed. First, there has been a substantial degree of devolution from central to local government, and also to communities. This is reflected by the landmark regulation of 1985 and the shequ fuwu programme. Second, funding sources have been diversified, and clever means devised to earn money for service agencies. Third, proliferation of feecharging has transformed a hitherto closed system. More and more, ability to pay has become a potent means to obtain services. Fourth, the chase for profits makes Chinese welfare agencies unique among welfare bureaucracies of the world. It remains true, of course, that the state role in welfare finance retains its importance, but an equally significant element is the drive towards self-sufficiency. In the struggle to discharge their duties, welfare organizations under different auspices are united in their fervour to earn their way out of the funding shortage. This trend is set to continue. Reduction in state regulation Discussion on the progress toward deregulation will be brief to avoid repetition. To recapitulate, deregulation in social welfare took three forms. First, there was a clear move toward decentralization. Through new budget contracts and the 1985 decree, the central government has relinquished primary responsibility to local authorities and neighbourhood agencies. While the Ministry has the power to set national policies, it is agencies on the ground that take care of enforcement. The second dimension was the liberalization of service access. The open door policy and fee-for-service mode meant that receipt of service no longer depended solely on designated status. The third means was the introduction of competition. Where there had been state domination in urban welfare provision, more players had entered the field. Now, voluntary agencies, including religious bodies and organizations with overseas links, are allowed to run social programmes. International aid agencies have also set up operations in the last few years. More on their work will follow in Chapter 6. One other development deserves scrutiny: reform in organizational management. Since the mid-1980s, the Ministry has been openly critical of the way welfare agencies were run. They were said to be passive and inefficient. Their staff lacked zeal and were unduly dependent on their superiors. In short, such units were too used to eating from the ‘big pot’ instead of taking responsibility for themselves. Welfare enterprises, in particular,


74

were said to be poorly managed, their plants and products outdated, and their cadres more concerned about social effectiveness (the welfare of staff) than economic effectiveness (maximizing efficiency) (Zhongguo Minzheng August 1989:41–3, April 1990:4–11, June 1992:6–7 and April 1993:6–7). Over the years, service units have been prodded to improve their management. Shrinking grants in the context of high inflation and the consequent need to augment their budgets have gradually forced agencies to maximize the use of resources, both material and human. Official concerns took on more urgency following Deng’s southern tour and the release in July 1992 of the Regulations Concerning Management Mechanism Transformation of State-Owned Industrial Enterprises. What the latter implied for service organizations was that, in stages and as far as possible, they should copy the operating mode of competitive firms. Welfare enterprises must follow market signals in deciding what goods and services to produce. All service units must pay attention to new service demands, enlarge the scope of fees, open up still more to the public, and balance their budgets. Where employment matters are concerned, staff should be engaged on a contract that sets out their rights and duties, their wages must be linked to agency income, and both cadres and workers can be laid off. Since 1991 a few cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Nanjing and Fuzhou—have started to reform the management system of welfare homes and factories with the aim of turning them into economic enterprises and eventually cutting the umbilical cord to state coffers (Zhongguo Minzheng August 1992:24–5, Wong 1993). Now, the authorities openly call on agencies to ‘foster civil affairs economics’ (fazhan minzheng jingji), ‘develop tertiary industries’ (fazhan disan chanye), ‘exploit economic levers’ (shiyong jinrong gonggan) to boost revenue, and ‘operate full-cost service items’ (xingban jingyingxing xiangmu). As noted above, a business craze has overtaken welfare managers, mirroring what is happening across the country where ‘entering the sea of business’ (xia hai) becomes a national obsession. An ideological climate with the above emphases will mean weakening of the service ethic. Welfare clients are likely to suffer from neglect if managers are too busy making money and devising paid programmes.

WELFARE PLURALISM Under the reform and open door policy, greater pluralism in welfare has undoubtedly evolved. Whether in provision, funding or regulation, key indicators of social service privatization, there are clear moves to pare down the burden of the state and enhance the role of civil society. As far as actual policies are concerned, the Chinese government has tacitly accepted devolution. Furthermore, it has openly promoted fee-charging, community and informal care, and reforms in financing and management. Up to now, there have been few proprietary programmes, neither has there been a wider use of subvention to replace direct state provision. From the vantage point of civil society, a welcome change is a new tolerance of the activities by autonomous social agencies, in addition to the state-controlled mass organizations. Voluntary agencies of different hues become the purveyors of new approaches (for example, rural development projects by the World Bank) and professionalism (for example, rehabilitation treatment and special


75

education work by Caritas and the Salvation Army) (China Development Briefing 1996, no. 1, South China Morning Post 28 April 1996). These themes will be explored in greater depth in Chapter 6. The Chinese are still uneasy about the term ‘privatization’. In the West, ‘private’ is linked to the idea of autonomy, of actions pursued by individuals and groups outside the reach of the state. This may explain why the Communist Party and the state are so worried. In Chinese eyes, the moot point centres on the nature of service agents—that alternative fund-providers are not bodies formed by self-seeking individuals but collective organizations. Thus their endeavours are acts of mutual help and altruism and hence instruments that serve the public good. The formal incorporation of community services, volunteering, philanthropy and voluntary efforts under the programme of mutual help in 1994 underscores such thinking. Consequently, ‘non-state’ is not the same as ‘private’ and ‘socialization’ is more accurate in describing the redistribution of care duties. Nowadays, mainland officials and researchers are at home with the terms minyinghua (society or people-run activities) and shangpinhua (commodification of services). Different forms of mixed state-society involvement—minban gongzuo (peoplerun with public support/funding) and gongban minzuo (state-run with support from the masses) are considered desirable. In the final analysis, welfare pluralism is about a redefinition of the roles of the state and civil society. In the process of retrenching state functions, the influence of social groups and individuals will increase. In the short run, this has created more burdens than liberties as local communities and families still come under the shadow of state domination. Towards the longer term, when voluntary and private groups achieve a greater measure of self-direction, the grip of the party state will relax further so that a more distinct boundary between public and private life can take root.

5 Welfare for veterans and peasants PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT AND VETERAN RESETTLEMENT Veteran administration took on strategic importance under the plan to trim the armed forces from 4 million soldiers to 3 million from 1985. A new conscription law beginning in 1984 gave legal effect to recruitment practices adopted since 1978. The PLA has ceased to be an army of volunteers. Instead conscripts make up its main strength; these are supplemented by a professional core of servicemen who volunteered to prolong their service. Much as the draft gave the state greater certainty over enlistment, the morale of combatants could be adversely affected if their families could not get adequate compensation. For this reason, reforms in preferential aid assumed added political meaning. Serving soldiers, retired and demobilized personnel, disabled veterans, martyrs and their dependants make up a sizeable proportion of the population. In 1980, this group comprised 49 million persons; in 1995 they still numbered 39 million (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:222–3). Preferential treatment Before the reform, state relief to military personnel consisted of one-off death grants, regular relief for martyr families and pensions to disabled soldiers. The proportion that obtained state aid was small, about 5 per cent. Aid to families of serving soldiers came from the collective—primarily from work points, cash and material relief allocated by production teams. After the reform, this imbalance was addressed. More soldiers’ dependants became eligible for state relief. So state spending on soldiers and veterans rose accordingly. In 1985, preferential aid cost the state 353 million yuan. This rose to 1,411 million yuan in 1990 and to 2,410 million yuan in 1995 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:725). Meanwhile it was not known how many received preferential aid from the masses. In monetary terms, however, the communal burden has markedly increased (at nearly eight times over the period) (see Table 5.1). The annual increases were especially steep in the early 1980s. The rate of increase flattened subsequently but has grown appreciably since the early 1990s.

Welfare for veterans and peasants

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Table 5.1 Preferential treatment targets, state relief and community aid, 1979–95

Year

Preferential treatment targets (10,000 persons) a

Number relieved by the state (10,000 persons) b

b/a (%)

Aid from communities (10,000 yuan) c

d (%)

1979

4,894

174

(3.6)

20,394

–

1980

5,025

222

(4.4)

31,459

(54.3)

1981

4,382

234

(5.3)

47,256

(50.2)

1982

4,298

241

(5.6)

58,751

(24.3)

1983

4,396

251

(5.7)

59,589

(1.4)

1984

4,321

267

(6.2)

62,263

(4.5)

1985

4,123

283

(6.9)

71,784

(15.3)

1986

4,103

340

(8.3)

75,396

(5.0)

1987

4,014

366

(9.1)

81,953

(8.7)

1988

3,876

379

(9.8)

88,082

(7.5)

1989

3,891

412

(10.6)

92,486

(5.0)

1990

3,895

426

(10.9)

99,827

(7.9)

1991

3,948

435

(11.0)

106,727

(6.9)

1992

3,940

434

(11.0)

117,023

(9.6)

1993

3,905

441

(11.3)

132,068

(12.9)

1994

3,919

442

(11.3)

156,339

(18.4)

1995

3,927

449

(11.4)

197,379

(26.3)

Source: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:12–14, 1996:222–4. Note: d=percentage increase over previous year.

Let us first consider state aid to soldiers and dependants. In line with the rise in aggregate spending, there have also been gradual improvements in payment levels. Relating to ongoing relief to needy survivors, a major change came in 1985 when the state introduced a monthly cash grant (dingqi fuxu) to replace the former practice of distributing relief at fixed intervals and in a fixed amount (dingqi dingliang jiuji). A payment schedule was also issued by the Ministry as general guidelines for local areas, which could determine the exact level of payment to suit local conditions. To implement the guidelines, the Ministry of Finance allocated an additional 80 million yuan to local areas. In 1993, the rates were further revised (Table 5.2). Nevertheless, the amount of relief, at 45–50 yuan per person per month for survivors living in villages and 60–65 yuan for those living in cities, was paltry against average annual incomes (922 yuan for peasants and 2,337 yuan for urban residents) (China Statistical Yearbook 1995:257). To


78

make matters worse, inflation was high. In 1993, the consumer price index went up by 14.7 per cent (16.7 per cent in urban areas and 13.7 per cent in rural areas). In 1994 and 1995, the consumer price index went up by 24.1 and 17.1 per cent respectively. Across the country, the annual per capita income in 1995 was 3,892 yuan in cities and 1,578 yuan in rural areas. The lag behind average standards was as wide as ever. Had recipients depended solely on aid, even bare subsistence would be difficult.

Table 5.2 Regular relief for dependants of martyrs and deceased personnel, 1985–95

with effect from 1985



(yuan per person per month) Death in the course of duty Residents in villages

20–25

45–50

55–60

Residents in small towns

30–35

50–60

65–70

Residents in medium and large cities

35–40

60–65

70–75

Residents in villages

15–20

40–45

50–55

Residents in small towns

25–30

50–55

60–65

Residents in medium and large cities

30–35

55–60

65–70

Death from disease

Sources: Dashiji 1988:684; Minzheng Gongzuo Wenjian Xuanbian 1993, Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Chubanshe 1994:60, hereafter Xuanbian; Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:49.

Regarding disability relief from the state, rates have likewise been revised several times between 1979 and 1987. Effective from January 1988, a new payment schedule was published (Table 5.3). As can be seen, higher awards went to persons who were disabled in the course of combat and duty than from disease. The differentials between classes of disability were very wide. Relief rates for peasants were much higher as they did not enjoy any job rights, and a disability would affect their earnings much more than it would urbanites who could return to their iron rice bowl. More significantly the 1988 regulations introduced the principle of relating the disability of the special class (complete loss of work ability) to the national average wage of an ordinary worker. Based on this notional figure, standards for other ranks were derived in a pre-set formula. The ‘average worker’s wage’ concept was a better way of linking compensation to average earnings in society. Wage indexation allowed easy adjustment and the calculation was potentially more scientific. This gave better protection to disabled veterans living in villages, although with rising prices their living standard still fell behind the rest of society notwithstanding subsequent revisions. Taken as a


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whole, state relief rates for all soldiers and dependants increased by an average of 32 per cent over the period of the Eighth Five Year Plan (1991–5). When compared to income rises in the community, the increment was meagre. The Ministry conceded that this was 77 per cent lower than income increases for urban households and 47 per cent less than those enjoyed by rural households (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:15). Financial shortage was given as the reason. Seemingly designating such persons as ‘the most adorable persons’ has not altered their deprivation. What about aid from the masses (qunzhong youdai)? Qunzhong youdai refers to goods and services given by the masses to soldiers and their families. Just as the earliest forms of mass aid by way of substitute tilling (1950–6) had

Table 5.3 Standard scales for the relief of disabled military workers, 1988–94

Category of relief Disabled

Grade of disability Special

personnel resident in

1

rural areas

2A

2B

3A

3B

For

Special

employed disabled

1

personnel in cities

2A

Nature of disability

Relief rate (p.a.) 1988 (yuan)



From combat

1,200

1,560

2,240

From duty

1,100

1,440

2,100

From combat

1,020

1,260

1,860

From duty

950

1,170

1,740

From disease

860

1,060

1,620

From combat

740

920

1,250

From duty

660

830

1,150

From disease

600

760

1,070

From combat

538

656

856

From duty

480

590

780

From disease

450

554

740

From combat

336

416

536

From duty

322

400

516

From combat

272

342

442

From duty

272

342

442

From combat

240

n/a

450

From duty

216

n/a

420

From combat

204

n/a

374

From duty

184

n/a

342

From combat

156

n/a

288

From duty

140

n/a

268

Marginalization and social welfare in China 2B

3A

From combat

135

n/a

231

From duty

122

n/a

214

From combat

108

n/a

174

98

n/a

160

From duty 3B

80

From combat

90

n/a

132

From duty

82

n/a

122

Sources: Zhuanji 1989:114; ZhongguoShehui Baozhang Zhidu Zonglan, Zonglan, Beijing: Zhongguo Minzhu Fazhi Chubanshe 1995:1192–3. Note: n/a=not available.

been replaced by the granting of work points (1957–80), the latter method was no longer relevant under the household farming system. As a result, both urban and rural areas adopted a universal cash payment system (pupian youdai) to compensate soldiers’ families. The alternative would be serious resistance to the draft. To understand the need for change, some background on military pay and recruitment is relevant. The PRC adopts different approaches in recruiting and remunerating officers and rank and file soldiers. Officers come primarily from graduates of military academies, colleges and vocational middle schools; some are promoted from serving soldiers who pass the relevant examinations. Given the status of a state cadre, officers are salaried personnel, hence their families have an assured income. Such conditions do not apply to ordinary conscripts. Coming mostly from rural areas, draftees (serving three years in the army and four years in the navy and air force) do not draw a monthly wage. What they get is free board and lodgings in the barracks, and a small stipend (about 40 yuan a month) as pocket money. Neither do their families get any state remittance. Under the reforms, military households in the countryside stand to suffer denuded labour power and reduced income. Even in urban areas, greater choice in jobs and self-employment offered youngsters far more opportunities than before, although there was still the attraction of a tenured job after discharge. No matter where they enlist, not having a regular wage does impose hardship on the young soldiers themselves, which incidentally dims their prospect of attracting dates and a potential spouse. This is contrary to the situation during the Cultural Revolution. Then, being a soldier was a badge of honour and soldiers were considered a good catch. Now, under a more materialistic climate, political status alone does not count much if not matched by good pay (Ming Pao 15 October 1996). The response in the countryside was to introduce cash compensation, which was calculated by joint reference to the family’s actual need and the average annual income in the community. The amount of subsidy usually fell between 50–100 per cent of the average annual income of one unit of labour. Funding for soldiers’ support came from two main sources. For localities that maintained cooperative rural industries and other collective projects, enterprise incomes and profits provided the revenue. Generally speaking, the higher the collective income, the less necessary it was to rely on per capita levies, the second means of finance. Areas that resorted to issuing levies were usually poor communities that had little industrial income. The implications for territorial justice


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were obvious. Residents in prosperous places were exempted from welfare tax; those in poor areas were doubly penalized by earning less money and having to contribute directly to communal welfare. Resourcing in urban areas centred around work units and neighbourhoods. The old work units of conscripts who held jobs before serving paid half of their basic wage to their dependants every month. Work units were also required to re-engage former employees who had completed their army stints. Meanwhile financial support for previously unplaced conscripts came from street offices, which also granted temporary relief to demobilized soldiers awaiting job placements upon their return to civilian life. In 1985, the annual cash subsidy to rural conscripts averaged 232 yuan per household. This increased to 255 yuan in 1986. In 1994, 3 million military households were given mass aid, costing some 156 million yuan (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:52). More and more, talking about national averages in mass aid is becoming meaningless. As regional income inequality widens, the economic condition of the home community is more important than ever. Rich villages and towns can pay each soldier-household 1,000 yuan per month. Poor places can only manage a few hundred yuan a year. Thus, within one barrack, soldiers draw vastly different allowances. Quite naturally such diversity gives rise to feelings of jealousy and injustice. It is also not uncommon to have soldiers’ incomes exceed officers’ pay. This anomaly is especially detrimental to morale (Zhongguo Minzheng September 1992:12–13). Besides providing cash relief, civil affairs bureaux maintain a residential and treatment programme for soldiers and veterans. These include: (1) homes for disabled soldiers, (2) sanatoria for chronically ill ex-servicemen, (3) psychiatric hospitals for retired and demobilized soldiers, and (4) homes of glory (guangrong yuan) (for single elderly but also accepting orphans and disabled dependants of veterans). As can be gleaned from Table 5.4, the programme was rather insignificant. Between 1978 and 1995, expansion has been modest to say the least. In the 1990s, both provision and residents have stagnated (Table 5.4). Another problem was uneven spread across regions. For instance, in 1992, Shandong, Hubei and Hebei provinces had 2,911 beds (14 per cent of total provision), 2,389 beds (11.5 per cent) and 2,309 beds (11.1 per cent) respectively. Laggards like Gansu, Fujian and Yunnan only had 50, 100 and 150 beds (Lishi Ziliao 1993:132). In 1995, the top three provinces kept their lead (with respectively 3,108, 2,557 and 2,225 beds) while the other three remained in bottom place (with 340, 60 and 160 beds) (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:248). With responsibility devolved to the regions, there is not much the Ministry can do to improve the distribution. For those fortunate enough to be served, living standards as measured by average spending per resident (mainly food) have improved modestly (Table 5.5). In all institutions, maintenance rates for residents rose steadily.


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Table 5.4 Institutions for disabled soldiers and veterans, 1978–95

Year

No. of units

No. of beds

No. of residents

1978

88

12,792

9,634

1979

87

13,417 (+4.9%)

10,437 (+8.3%)

1980

100

15,226 (+13.5%)

10,874 (+4.2%)

1981

106

16,756 (+10.0%)

12,305 (+13.2%)

1982

102

16,668 (–0.1%)

11,974 (–2.7%)

1983

100

16,572 (–0.1%)

12,003 (+0.2%)

1984

99

15,944 (–0.4%)

12,002 (–0.0%)

1985

103

16,491 (+3.4%)

12,709 (+5.9%)

1986

102

16,934 (+2.7%)

13,026 (+2.5%)

1987

104

17,761 (+4.9%)

13,586 (+4.3%)

1988

108

17,936 (+1.0%)

13,703 (+0.9%)

1989

110

19,087 (+6.4%)

14,259 (+4.1%)

1990

115

19,877 (+4.1%)

15,129 (+6.1%)

1991

114

20,250 (+1.9%)

14,933 (–1.3%)

1992

117

20,735 (+2.4%)

15,860 (+6.2%)

1993

118

21,258 (+2.5%)

16,072 (+1.3%)

1994

124

21, 385 (+0.6%)

16,028 (–0.3%)

1995

125

21,782 (+1.9%)

15,953 (–0.5%)

Sources: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian, various years; Lishi Ziliao 1993.

However, when the effect of inflation was reckoned, the gains were negligible. This fact had been lamented in every period report issued by the Ministry. The latest, the Ministry’s 1994 Annual Release, admitted that per head spending on servicemen and dependants was only 552 yuan per annum. After inflation had taken its toll, veterans’ incomes actually suffered a net loss of 2.8 per cent (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:5). Relevant data were omitted in the 1995 Annual Release. On another front, veteran institutions have made good attempts to upgrade the quality of care. In a move to professionalize services, the Ministry took steps to integrate personal care and rehabilitation treatment with simple custodial support. A significant proportion of inmates who were treated were said to have shown ‘marked improvements’ (Shehui Baozhang Bao 8 January 1988). Another initiative was to open services to the general public. In this respect, some successes have been reported. Likewise, out-patient treatments have been given by veteran sanatoria and hospitals on a charge basis. In addition, the admission of self-financing residents alleviated tight


83

budgets. Nevertheless, given the shortfall of service, one cannot be sure whether the open door policy has benefited its traditional targets. Admitting paid clients may crowd out needy veterans who could not pay for their care.

Table 5.5 Average annual living expenditure per resident in soldiers’ and veterans’ institutions, 1979–94 (yuan)

1979

1983

1986

1990

1994

Homes for disabled soldiers

464

382

701

960

1,563

Sanatoria for chronically ill soldiers

272

292

436

569

774

Psychiatric hospitals

233

279

356

576

1,067

Homes of glory (aged homes)

153

190

432

714

1,148

Sources: Dashiji 1988:762, Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1991:240, 1995:216.

Veteran resettlement The resettlement of veterans is one of the most important functions for civil affairs departments. In 1955, the PRC released its first Conscription Law. From then onwards, conscripts rather than volunteers made up the core of armed personnel. Three years later, the first batch of conscripts completed their tour of service. To complement this, the state announced the Provisional Regulations on Dealing with Demobilized Soldiers (1958). The gist of this policy is depicted as ‘from whence you come, to whence you go’ (cong nali lai, hui nali qu); namely, repatriation to the veterans’ registered place of abode upon demobilization. Eighty per cent of PLA recruits hailed from rural areas. Each year, some 700,000 to 800,000 former soldiers returned to the countryside. Before 1978, all rural recruits rejoined their former brigades and teams. Rural decollectivization foreclosed this avenue. In 1987, the State Council released the Regulations on the Resettlement of Demobilized Soldiers. The new regulations did not depart too much from the 1958 provisional decree. Again, the return-home principle was retained. Notwithstanding the avowed aim of proper placement for all, distinctions in treatment were made. Recruits’ performance during their tour of service would be taken into account when they were resettled. Priority of placement would go to those achieving awards for distinguished service and for those who had acquired special skills. As far as possible, the government would try to find jobs for soldiers who had been disabled in the course of duty. Likewise, veterans are eligible for special consideration when applying to go to university and vocational middle schools (Zhongguo Shehui Baozhang Zhidu Zonglan 1995:1206). Between 1978 and 1987, 8 million veterans have been resettled (Shehui Baozhang Bao 22 January 1988). The vast majority returned to farm their allotted land. Some found jobs in the burgeoning rural industries or set themselves up in a small business. Only army officers and decorated soldiers were rewarded with a post in a township or village government office or made a cadre in a collective enterprise. In short, most have to fend


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for themselves. The job of helping veterans is not confined to CADs alone. Many government departments are involved. For example, the programme of fuyou, development aid for veterans, draws on the efforts of many agencies, each doing what they can. For example, agricultural departments teach cropping advice and farming techniques. Supply bureaux give veterans preference in buying seeds and fertilizers. Bank and credit agencies arrange for loans and credit and so on. However, it was the CADs which have the job of coordinating inter-agency aid and planning the whole resettlement operation. Since 1983, in order to exploit fully the talent of ex-servicemen, CADs piloted skills training. Some also organized job exchanges at county, district and village levels. From 1983 to 1987, 2,000 counties and cities have formed military-civilian human resources agencies (jundi liangyong rencai fuwu jigou), serving more than 1.5 million veterans (Shehui Baozhang Bao 25 March 1988). By the end of 1987, 250,000 former soldiers were employed as village cadres, 260,000 were placed in rural industries, and 110,000 took up rural sideline and specialist productions. In addition, former soldiers set up a total of 2,300 joint economic enterprises. In 1988, the number of manpower development agencies grew to 2,300, serving some 510,000 persons (Shehui Baozhang Bao 14 April 1989). Relevant statistics after 1988 have not been made available. Scattered reports suggest that many returned soldiers did well, using the skills and connections built up where they were stationed. Quite a number have become successful entrepreneurs. Some have done good work in teaching and helping fellow villagers to get ahead. In the area of skill training, CADs made use of outside resources. Colleges and technical experts were invited to conduct special classes, retraining schemes and counselling. An advanced city was Jiamusi in Heilongjiang province, which set up a string of training bases, drawing on the help of over a hundred units. Changting County, Fujian province, was also cited for innovative projects making use of existing militia camps as training locations. Apart from a few outstanding examples, however, the performance of such schemes varied widely. While some tried to offer rigorous training, most programmes appeared to be run haphazardly. Quite commonly, the training schemes last for three to five days and are stronger in indoctrination than in skill acquisition (Zhongguo Minzheng December 1996:15). The vast majority of rural returnees still receive little preparation and find job hunting difficult. For them, national service cost them the normal opportunities enjoyed by friends and neighbours. This has resulted in reduced enthusiasm to enlist; some even turn to using clever ways to disqualify themselves from the draft. Hence, a drop in the quality of recruits has been reported (Ming Pao 15 October 1996). More and more, recruits tend to come from poor villages. Communities with many serving soldiers thus complain bitterly about their unjust burden (ibid. September 1992:12–13). In resettling urban returnees, the government used to rely on administrative fiat. Since the 1950s, the placement principle was to find jobs that matched the skills of veterans (hangye duikou). When the Cultural Revolution ended, the country faced a crisis of unemployment, when some 16 million young people sent down to the countryside trickled back to the cities. Under-employment was also rife. Under such circumstances, restoring personnel to their old trades was not easy. In 1980, a resettlement conference adopted a new policy of job placement. The resolution was that each industry or work


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sector (xitong) has to accept an assigned quota under the state plan (an xitong fengpei renwu, baogan anzhi). This meant that the returnee would still get a job in the original industrial sector, but the work might not match his or her skill and training. Concurrently, the authorities tried to open up more employment sources. Apart from simply waiting for job assignment, returnees were asked to find work using private channels or to become self-employed. The general ethos was to get rid of dependency and passivity. In 1983 a joint circular from the ministries of Civil Affairs, Labour and Personnel, Public Security, and Defence further resolved to link urban job placement with merit and achievement. This sanctioned differential treatment. For former soldiers who achieved merit and volunteered to prolong their military service, they would be placed in jobs according to their preference; receiving units were expected to utilize their expertise in assigning duties. At the same time, those who completed their national service would have priority of allocation over those who did not. On the other hand, miscreants were to be penalized. Ex-soldiers who had committed an offence during their tour of duty or period awaiting job assignment would be treated like any job-awaiting youth (daiye qingnian). Seniority would also affect treatment: former soldiers who served for over one year would be placed only after the group who completed their tour; those serving less than a year would not get any priority at all. Ministry strictures notwithstanding, placement efforts for urban returnees encountered serious setbacks with the push towards enterprise reforms (Zhongguo Minzheng October 1989:18, August 1990:24, July 1991:18, August 1996:20–1; Zhongguo Shehui Bao 21 January 1995, 28 January 1995 and 2 May 1995; Ming Pao 15 October 1996). First of all, many work units were reluctant to accept their labour quota. The non-state firms were emphatically resistant. Meanwhile, the capacity of the state sector to absorb new recruits has fallen, with many firms running into insolvency and already saddled with surplus staff. Second, most work units tried to limit their intake, the primary reason being that most are already over-manned. Hence, a common strategy was to confine their obligation to children of their own employees. In turn, these problems reverberated on placement agencies. Some tried to refocus their efforts. As soon as they had found work for priority targets (decorated soldiers and officers), they considered their mission fulfilled. In early 1995, the Ministry reported that 50,000 soldiers leaving the PLA in 1993 still remained idle (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 4 March 1995). Much as the Ministry want to guarantee the first job for demobilized personnel, this is becoming almost impossible. Third, unrealistic expectation of returnees compounded the difficulties. Most would like to work in a government office or in finance and trade. Almost none wanted to become a production worker or join an unprofitable enterprise. Finally, widespread practices of ‘going through the back door’ by people with connections stirred resentment. The lack of openness in placement work also heightened perceptions of nepotism and corruption. In many areas, the armed forces had a tense relationship with civilians, the result of lax discipline and competition with local businesses, which resented the unfair advantages enjoyed by firms linked to the PLA. This tension was not conducive to placement efforts (Zhongguo Minzheng August 1996:20–1). To a large extent, many of these problems are co-products of the reform. Indeed they are so complex and intertwining that they defy easy solutions. Problems like these have prompted calls for social legislation. The drafting work on the


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Law on the Resettlement of Demobilized Soldiers was set for completion by the end of 1996. None the less, it is difficult to see how any effort of enforced work quota will succeed given the state’s waning control of the market economy and the deteriorating performance of state firms. Barring those who possess special talents and guanxi (relationship networks), demobilized personnel have become a discontented group. The state was expected to help. For urban veterans, a state-assigned job used to be theirs by right. They still get a lot of verbal praises. They do not get much help in finding a foothold on the market floor.

RELIEF AND WELFARE IN RURAL AREAS The rural population had to make do with a primitive collective welfare system before the reform. Even this rudimentary structure became unstuck when communes bowed out. It took a few years to rebuild old programmes and to pilot new ones to meet the survival needs of peasants in a semi-privatized economy. In particular, the lack of income guarantees, principally social assistance and pensions, made the needy even more dependent on the family. Rural relief During the commune period, the relief programme followed the party line of ‘rely on the masses, rely on the collective, self-regeneration through production in the main, supplemented by necessary relief from the state’. Primary responsibility was placed on the masses and rural collectives while the state’s role was supplementary. This position did not change with the reforms. In 1983, the Eighth Civil Affairs Conference spelt out the general direction as: ‘rely on the masses, rely on the collective, regeneration through production, mutual help and mutual relief, supplemented by necessary relief and development aid from the state’. When compared with the pre-reform goal statement, the new emphases were ‘mutual help and mutual relief and ‘developmental aid from the state’. These were mandated by new circumstances. With the abolition of communes, assured funding that came out of collective welfare funds was gone. Hence a new fiscal base had to be built on taxes from rural industries and household levies. In these ways, the values of mutual help and mutual relief by the masses were highlighted. At the same time, poverty in the midst of emerging wealth and greater income inequality became a political issue confronting the state. For one, civil affairs agencies came to the conclusion that handouts were too passive and could not help the poor to regain independence. To be truly effective, the assistance given should aim at helping people earn their living. Hence, development aid or poverty aid (fupin) was introduced alongside the regular relief programme. The 1983 conference endorsed three major reforms in disaster relief policy. First, the adoption of the responsibility system in disaster relief funding. The first experiments started in Ningxia and Gansu. By 1985 the method spread to other areas. The essential feature was for the central government to negotiate with a province the fixed grant which the latter would receive annually for disaster relief over a period; the latter then managed


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the best it could within it. While local areas could retain the unspent money, they gave up the right to ask for more. The contracted amount was determined by such factors as the region’s history of natural disasters, the number of poor counties, local financial ability and demographic characteristics (Gailun 1987:158). This policy was justified in the name of strengthening local initiative and responsibility. Hopefully it could also check the problems of local areas exaggerating their plight to get more money from the centre, or hiding calamities to avoid censure. Second, reform in the use of relief funds. The aim was to ensure the most flexible use of limited relief funds by turning ‘dead money (grants) into live money (loans)’. Both grants and loans performed useful functions. Allowing local authorities to use funds flexibly would put limited resources to good use. Third, change in the method of payment. After the immediate requirements of victims were met, recipients who were deemed capable of repayment had to return the loan without interest. Only people without work ability, for instance the ‘five guarantees’ households, were exempted. Table 5.6 lists the output of all state relief programmes. The most striking revelation was the progressive fall in the number of recipients getting social relief and natural disaster relief. The decline was sharpest after 1983, the start year for fupin. Recipient figures remained low until the late 1980s. More interestingly, the number given disaster relief and those receiving loans seemed to be negatively related. This suggested that as fupin numbers rose, the number getting disaster relief dived, and vice versa. A similar relationship was found between the granting of loans and social relief. Only preferential aid appeared to be unaffected by the other relief programmes. The continuous growth in aided persons reflected the state’s unwavering commitment to the support of veterans and their dependants. Let us take a closer look at the relief policies. Regarding the relief fund responsibility system, the intended effects have either not occurred or have created new problems. To begin with, it was impossible to work out an appropriate grant figure, if only because disaster prediction was fraught with difficulties. It was also impossible to stamp out the abuse in the use of relief funds, a long-standing problem. Immediately following the release of the

Table 5.6 Beneficiaries of relief from the state, 1979–95

Year Natural disaster rel. (‘000 Social relief person/times) (’000 persons)

Fupin aid (‘000 hhs)

Preferential aid (’000 persons)

1979

13,036.5

5,567.8

–

173.6

1980

9,444.5

5,510.9

74.5

222.4

1981

9,483.7

5,198.1

155.7

233.6

1982

9,864.4

3,181.7

241.4

240.8

1983

8,655.7

3,042.8

343.6

251.2

1984

7,095.4

2,992.1

551.0

267.3


88

1985

6,061.4

3,729.7

853.3

283.3

1986

6,738.6

3,000.3

1,090.0

339.8

1987

6,710.9

3,121.3

1,064.9

366.3

1988

6,029.2

3,141.6

1,040.5

378.5

1989

6,716.6

3,297.0

916.7

411.7

1990

8,215.0

4,968.2

756.9

425.7

1991

12,496.4

4,889.4

756.0

434.8

1992

8,136.7

4,129.5

720.9

433.7

1993

7,308.4

4,146.8

701.9

441.2

1994

8,227.6

4,175.8

706.8

441.9

1995

7,937.6

4,015.3

696.3

448.8

Source: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:223

1983 regulations, a number of serious breaches came to light—in Anhui, Shanxi and Jiangxi in May 1984 (Dashiji 1988:430), in Founan and Gaoan counties in June 1984 (ibid.: 437) and Huoyou county in 1986 (ibid.: 524–5). Interestingly some of the incidents were widely publicized in the national press, along with stern reproach from top leaders. Given that all PRC newspapers were under party control, such handling was indicative of the gravity of the problem. It could as well be seen as a means to prod CADs to strengthen financial control and pre-empt pleas for more handouts. The evidence concerning flexible use of relief funds was mixed. On the positive side, valuable initiative on poverty alleviation has been seized, as will be discussed shortly. Contrariwise the policy resulted in much confusion. For example, in the absence of firm guidelines on what proportions could be used for emergency payment as against fupin, many areas followed the political wind and became unduly stingy in dispensing relief. This could explain why the recipient population dropped so sharply. By 1986, many articles in Shehui Baozhang Bao and Zhongguo Minzheng were clamouring for more attention to the subsistence needs of disaster victims. With respect to combined use of loans and grants, the evidence was also chequered. On the one hand, difficulties in getting grants, except for ‘five guarantees’ targets, led to the growth of credit cooperatives and mutual funds started by the masses and civil affairs bureaux, either singly or in conjunction with agricultural banks and insurance companies. On the other hand, there was a reduction in state aid. From 1984 onwards, the Ministry withheld disaster relief grants to rural counties with annual per capita income above 400 yuan. Between 1982 and 1987, 4.2 billion yuan was released as loans, equivalent to 57 per cent of all funds budgeted for natural disaster relief (Zhongguo Jingji Tizhi Gaige Shinian 1988:60). Fewer state grants forced local areas to turn to loans and community resources to satisfy development and welfare needs. As farmers cannot sell their allocated land, they have no collateral. Only the richest households qualify for loans from mainstream financial institutions. Poorer households are reduced to borrowing from


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families, illegal loan agencies, or individuals charging extortionist rates (Hong Kong Economic Journal 19 April 1994). State banks and rural credit agencies are not interested in lending to individual peasants. They do better by lending to cash-strapped enterprises. In rural areas, the ‘five guarantees’ programme was the basis of social relief in the countryside. Because of stringent criteria, only a small number (less than 3 million) qualified (see Table 5.7). Among them, some 75–80 per cent actually received the ‘five guarantees’. Before 1980, the percentage of people supported was less than 90 per cent. The collapse of communes seriously threatened the viability of the scheme. In the early 1980s, the number of recipients plummeted, suggesting chaos during the transitional years and greater parsimony in granting aid. In the mid-1980s, the support rate improved and then dived to less than 75 per cent in 1992. Thereafter, a revival occurred, peaking at 94 per cent in 1995.

Table 5.7 The ‘five guarantees’ scheme, 1985–95

Year

‘Five guarantees’ persons (10,000)

‘Five guarantees’ recipients (10,000)

Rate supported (%)

Communal spending (10,000 yuan)

1985

274.7

220.2

80.2

58,605

1986

264.7

213.9

80.8

62,432

1987

255.7

209.0

81.7

76,072

1988

250.1

196.8

78.7

84,239

1989

287.2

209.8

73.1

86,248

1990

250.6

195.1

77.9

102,360

1991

248.4

188.6

75.9

112,842

1992

231.8

172.9

74.6

119,555

1993

244.7

216.7

88.6

145,994

1994

247.6

230.2

93.0

177,358

1995

249.4

234.9

94.2

197,437

Sources: China Statistical Yearbook, various years; Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian, various years.

The plight of needy people not getting help stirred concern. Some destitute persons were reportedly found begging from their neighbours, or were left entirely to their own devices. This prompted a number of ministerial and provincial circulars reminding the masses of their duty. The response from local areas has been to structure a system of household levies to finance the scheme. By the late 1980s, most places have centralized collection and distribution of aid within the township or village level. At the end of 1995, some 197,000 social welfare funds of various kinds were in operation, accumulating some 3.7 billion yuan (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:217). More prosperous


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places like the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong rely mainly on incomes from rural enterprises. However, these methods are far from satisfactory. Levies, in particular, are too ad hoc. Likewise enterprise incomes fluctuate from year to year. More reliable means of securing income have yet to be found. One definite improvement in providing support to ‘five-guarantees’ households has been the building of communal care facilities. Homes of respect (jinglao lou) or aged homes sprang up quickly. The years 1983 and 1984 saw the largest expansion in the number of homes and residents. In the first reform decade, the total number of rural homes quadrupled; total residents increased by three times (see Table 5.8). By the end of 1988, 48.5 per cent of villages/townships had established one aged home (Shehui Baozhang Bao 14 April 1989). Service and resident growth kept their momentum until 1989. Afterwards, both stagnated. Nevertheless, by 1995, 63.2 per cent of townships/villages could boast one aged home for the local destitute (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:217). A related development was the setting up of ‘five guarantees’ service centres, which were pioneered by Jilin. Based in the old age homes, these centres became a venue for organizing support services—for example,

Table 5.8 Old age homes run by rural communities, 1979–95

Year

No. of homes

No. of beds

Total residents

Elderly residents

1979

7,470

n/a

105,582

96,326

1980

8,262

n/a

111,796

99,686

1981

8,544

n/a

115,481

104,408

1982

10,586

n/a

137,581

119,679

1983

14,047

n/a

169,425

150,130

1984

20,871

n/a

241,430

214,494

1985

23,622

309,441

261,669

233,929

1986

26,678

350,778

285,186

255,453

1987

28,014

390,554

313,448

281,058

1988

28,532

411,113

324,716

292,120

1989

29,625

450,657

345,607

309,974

1990

27,886

434,694

331,343

305,126

1991

29,067

461,320

360,540

337,848

1992

26,472

452,406

350,570

329,298

1993

26,281

456,740

350,133

330,600

1994

25,205

455,055

345,406

323,760

1995

n/a

419,875

316,713

n/a

Sources: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian, various years; Lishi Ziliao, 1993.


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collecting and supplying grain and domiciliary help to the needy in their homes (Minzheng Cidian 1987:158, Shehui Baozhang Bao 3 April 1987). This approach was quickly copied by other areas. There were other changes. One was income generation. In this area, the nature and scale of projects varied. In 1987, entrepreneurial activities were reaping an income of 60 million yuan. By September 1988, 80 per cent of all rural homes were engaging in some form of money-making activity (Shehui Baozhang Bao 23 June 1989). Yet another experiment was the promotion of care and support contracts between the elderly and their families or other carers. These agreements were meant to provide better guarantees for support, make explicit rights and duties, and forestall quarrels among heirs. Both ordinary old people and ‘five guarantees’ folks were encouraged to make such agreements. For the latter, the contracts would be signed with a relative (who had no legal duty to support), neighbour, local cadre or the village collective. These were then witnessed by village officials. Most commonly this involved an indigent elder being given material and labour support from the designated carer or collective in exchange for the latter gaining possession of his/her estate (usually the house) after death. This worked well when consent was genuine and mutual. Nevertheless there have been reports of elders being forced to sign away their estates as a condition of receipt. The Ministry has condemned this as a violation of old people’s right to self-determination. However, since the funding and administration of the ‘five guarantees’ is a local matter, outside intervention has no effect. Equally the enforcement of such contracts is a concern since they have no legal standing. Prosperous places have done better for their elders. Some rural comunities have set up pension schemes. The money came from individual contributors, collective subsidies or both. In an early experiment in Taoyuan county, Hunan province, individual peasants paid 3 yuan a month and the village also topped up the payment. On reaching age 60, subscribers could get between 18–40 yuan per month depending on years of membership (Shehui Baozhang Bao 3 June 1988). Similar schemes were found in Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hubei, Fujian and Guangdong. In 1989, pension plans were operating in 8,000 villages; total subscribers amounted to 900,000 (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 23 February 1990). Early success prompted the Ministry to lobby for a firm mandate from central government. In 1991, it succeeded in winning supervision of pensions for rural inhabitants, including peasant workers employed in rural industries. Such work gained more organizational support in 1993 when the Ministry set up a special department in charge of rural social insurance (nongcun shehui baoxianci) (Zhongyang Zhengfu Zuzhi Jigou 1995). In 1994, 27 million rural residents had joined a pension scheme, benefits were paid out to 170,000 persons, and money collected amounted to 1.7 billion yuan (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:3). I paid a visit to this department in September 1995. By June 1995, 46 million peasants had become members, 151,000 were drawing out benefits, and the reserve amounted to 3.9 billion yuan. The top nine provinces accounted for 47 per cent of all reserve funds and 78 per cent of subscribers. However, 12 provinces have barely built up a decent membership. At the end of 1995, these schemes boasted a membership of 51


92

million, collected a 3,670 million yuan premium, and paid out pensions to 269,000 persons. Total reserves amounted to 5,950 million yuan (ibid.: 1996:217). In parallel to the supply of residential care for the elderly, workshops for the disabled have also proliferated. In 1985 welfare factories in the countryside were almost unknown. Ten years later (year-end 1994), towns and villages were running 2,100 welfare enterprises employing 290,000 disabled persons (ibid.: 1995:102–5); in 1995, there was no such breakdown in the statistics. In civil affairs jargon, any township/village that manages to set up one aged home, one welfare factory and one social welfare fund within its area is said to have built up a ‘rural social security network’. At the end of 1994, 31 per cent of xiang/zhen had such networks (ibid.: 1995:4). Achieving an infrastructure of service and pooled funding at the community level is no mean feat for an agrarian country. On geographical spread, however, the same inequality was found. Four provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shandong, and Henan) had set up rural social security networks in over 80 per cent of villages and towns. Meanwhile in 16 provinces (out of a total of 30 provinces), less than 20 per cent of rural communities had such coverage (ibid.: 1995:38). By 1995, 33 per cent of towns and villages had been covered. Poverty alleviation By far, fupin has been the most important programme in terms of impact and political significance. Poverty alleviation means a lot to an agrarian country, especially to one undergoing reform. In the Chinese countryside, early attempts to help deficit households engage in production were pioneered by Guangdong, Hubei and Sichuan after the Great Leap. However, the nascent schemes faltered during the Cultural Revolution. With the imminent collapse of collective agriculture, calls to revive and extend fupin became vocal and persistent. China’s approach to poverty alleviation is area-based. Previously, urban poverty was deemed to be non-existent or irrelevant. Hence for decades poverty in China meant rural poverty. Official attention, in particular, focused on poor counties where physical conditions were harsh, transport poor, and cultural and infrastructural facilities inadequate. Such places were found primarily in the north-west and south-west. Before the reform, state aid consisted of allocation of grain and relief grants made available from the central coffers. In 1982, the Party Central Committee and State Council resolved to allocate 200 million yuan a year (for ten years) regional aid to poor areas in the arid north-west (central Gansu, Shaanxi and Ningxia). This was followed by a multi-ministry circular (State Economic Commission, Civil Affairs, Finance, Commerce, Foreign Trade, Agriculture and Fishery, Education, Agricultural Bank of China, State Commodities Bureau) demanding concerned state agencies to provide grants, credit, materials, advice and services to poor production teams and households in late 1982 (Wenjian Huibian 1984, 2:214–17). In 1984, another joint party and state decree called for the speeding up of fupin projects (Shehui Baozhang Bao 4 April 1989). In 1985, the state agreed to reduce and exempt poor areas from agricultural taxes for three to five years. In 1986, regional aid for old base areas, territories inhabited by national minorities, border and poor areas was incorporated into the Seventh Five Year


93

Plan. The same year also saw a further injection of 1 billion yuan state-backed loans (with interest paid by the government) to poor regions. More importantly, the State Council set up the Leading Group on Poverty Alleviation which promulgated policy and coordinated the national effort. In 1987, selected poor counties were exempted from paying energy and transportation development funds. They were also allowed to lower the reserve fund ratio for bank deposits. Further, between 1985 and 1987 the state gave food, cotton and clothes worth 2.7 billion yuan to poor areas (ibid. 4 April 1989). The use of loans to poor regions continued. In 1988, additional credit worth 700 million yuan was approved to help poor counties start local industries, with another 50 million yuan designated for grazing areas. The estimate in early 1989 was that state aid and development funds to poor regions cost some 4.05 billion a year (ibid.). While the above policies had an area focus, the CAD role was at first confined to giving aid to individual households. In 1978, the Ministry started the rallying call for fupin experiments. The 1982 joint circular extended the roles of CADs to being adviser, planner and coordinator to central government (Wenjian Huibian 1984, 2:216). To qualify for development loans, beneficiaries must not only be poor but must also satisfy these criteria: 1 households with few resources but possessing labour power and production outlets; 2 soldiers’ dependants who cannot attain subsistence notwithstanding preferential aid; 3 households with skills and business experience but which have no capital; 4 households experiencing insurmountable difficulties in the short term (as a result of natural and man-made disasters); 5 former landlords and rich peasants (who had their class labels removed) encountering hardships; 6 hardship households who have corrected their past mistakes and lazy habits after a period of re-education and observation; 7 dependants of offenders who support their sentence, abide by the law and actively engage in production (Gailun 1987:200–2). Three features stand out immediately from the above criteria. First, eligible households must have the potential to regain self-sufficiency—namely, the possession of labour power and skills. This distinguishes them from ‘five guarantees’ households for whom relief is more appropriate. Second, fupin acts as a supplement to existing assistance measures; for example, veteran support and debilitating disasters. Third, new groups (the last three categories) were included after 1978; in urban areas, groups undergoing political rehabilitation also became eligible at the same time. CAD-sponsored fupin activities took two major forms—first, decentralized help tailored to the requirements of individual households, and, second, poverty aid to economic entities. Included in the latter were farms and factories set up to employ poor householders, disabled persons and poor veterans. The use of fupin farms was particularly useful. I visited a few of these in Guangdong. They supplied seedlings, fish fry or healthy strains at cheap prices to local farmers, which served to develop the local economy besides creating employment. The first place to try out this approach was Dongyi Village of Lucheng County, Shanxi. The Ministry considered its experience so valuable that it arranged an on-site conference to introduce it to other areas. By the end of 1988, fupin


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entities increased to 76,000 (Shehui Baozhang Bao 14 April 1989). In 1990, 40,000 of these projects were recorded (Xuanbian 1991/2:2). In adopting both collective and decentralized approaches, the MCA dictum was fuzhifuben. Fuzhi is support through education—indoctrinating the poor to be self-reliant, work hard and get rich. This helped to overcome the apathy and lack of confidence common among poor people. Fuben literally means ‘giving support with capital’— money, human and technical. Without material inputs, the motivated poor would not have the concrete tools to improve their lot (Gailun 1987:211–12). Since 1984, following the successful example of Chengdu City in Sichuan, the work of fupin and fuyou (development aid to soldiers’ dependants) has been combined (ibid.: 79–80). This ‘double-support’ (shuang fu) formula made sense as both embraced similar aims and methods. During the period of the Sixth Five Year Plan period (1981–5), 2,100 counties (90 per cent of all counties) and 56,715 townships/streets (61.9 per cent) had undertaken shuang fu work. Altogether some 11,876,000 households benefited, out of which 5,485,000 have reportedly ‘escaped from poverty’ (tuopin) (Dashiji 1988:737). In the Seventh Five Year Plan period (1986–90), the reported figure was 20 million households on fupin with half leaving poverty. Additionally, 40,000 farms and projects were in operation (Xuanbian 1991/2:2). Between 1991 and 1994, a total of 28.9 million households received aid, 8.6 million were deemed non-poor, and the average tuopin rate was 28 per cent. Nineteen eighty-five marked the high tide of fupin. However, CAD fever for fupin must have meant neglect of elementary relief. At the Central Committee Work Conference on Agricultural Work on 19 December 1985, veteran leader Chen Yun called for action to solve the food shortage crisis in poor areas. In particular, the MCA was commanded to respond with concrete proposals (Dashiji 1988:491). This prompted Minister Cui to concede, in January 1986, that ‘We must first let hardship households have food first. Helping the masses in poor areas start a business can follow’ (ibid.: 491). Nevertheless, there has been no relaxation of fupin work. By the end of 1986, some 17,378,000 households were given loans; out of these, 8,097,000 households were said to have left poverty behind (ibid.: 756). The cumulative figures for recipient households reached 18,444,000 by the end of 1987 (Zhongguo Minzheng October 1989:6) and 21 million by October 1988 (Shehui Baozhang Bao 7 October 1988). The proportion of such households escaping from poverty within the year was 29.2 per cent during 1987 (ibid. 25 March 1988) and 30.52 per cent during 1988 (ibid. 14 April 1989). Over the Seventh Five Year Plan period (1986–90), Ministry statistics counted a total of 20 million households given development loans and 10 million households successfully regaining independence (Xuanbian 1991/2:2). In the Eighth Five Year Plan period (1991–5), 16 million households were granted fupin loans, with a tuopin rate of 61 per cent (Zhongzou Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:14). It is hard to comment on the effectiveness of the fupin programme. The first problem was conceptual ambiguity. In 1985, the CCP Central Secretariat defined poor households as those with an annual per capita income of 200 yuan (Guangdong Minzheng 1991, 6:28). Since then the poverty line has been revised several times. In 1994, the rural poverty line was set at 440 yuan (US$55); in 1995, it was raised to 530 yuan (US$66) (Sunday Morning Post 28 April 1996, Hong Kong Economic Journal 20 March 1996).


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Nevertheless, the national poverty measure was only a rough benchmark. For practical purposes, local areas had to work out their own poverty measures since economic conditions differed widely across China. It was also disputable whether any benchmark took adequate account of the retail price rises which hit the poorest disproportionately hard. There was a more serious flaw. According to my interview with China’s poverty expert Zhu Ling in July 1996, ‘the rural poor’ only referred to rural inhabitants living in poverty-stricken areas. Destitute people in better-off areas were not counted in the poverty figures. Equally, some residents in ‘poor areas’ may not be poor at all. A case study illustrated the danger of adopting ‘the people in poor areas’. approach and discounting ‘poor people in rich areas’. Chinese researcher Chen Suping made a study of four affluent villages (total households: 2,260; total population: 9,786) in Sheyang County, Jiangsu Province in early 1996 (Zhongguo Minzheng March 1996:11). While the average per capita income exceeded 2,000 yuan, the mean was gravely distorted by the presence of rich households. High-income households (721 households, 2,840 persons) earned more than 30,000 yuan per household (the richest household earned 1.1 million yuan) or 14,000 yuan per head (seven times the average per capita income). Their combined earnings made up 89 per cent of the total income in the four villages. If this segment was discounted, the per capita income for the rest was only 760 yuan. Among these, 590 households (26 per cent) earned less than 400 yuan per member, which was well below the national poverty line! Extremes in income distribution were by no means uncommon in suburban communities. Inflating average local incomes has negative ramifications. One result was neglect of poverty alleviation work. Cadres could hide behind the façade of wealth to do nothing or very little for the poor. Another problem was bigger burdens for ordinary households. Salaries of local cadres were linked to economic indicators. Thus low-income residents have to share a large salary bill with their affluent neighbours. A more dangerous outcome is misguided optimism and irresponsibility on the part of local leaders. Overzealous cadres may blindly increase collective levies to build public projects. Needless to say, people with limited means suffer the most. What passed for tuopin was equally vague and ill-defined. MCA guidelines are impressionistic at best. The first criterion is that after getting aid from the state and the masses, the designated household can support itself and possess enough food and clothes (wen bao). Second, it can attain basic living standards and save some surplus (weichi jiben shenghuo, lueyou jieyu). Third, it possesses the means to expand production. Finally, all debts have been repaid (Minzheng Cidian 1987:149). As to what the above qualifying phrases mean, there is no further elaboration. More vexing still, how strictly these criteria were being applied in different areas was a mystery. Given that policy implementation at the rural grassroots was prone to management constraints, the accuracy of local reports cannot be assumed. Hence the reliability of national statistics is in question. Definitional problems apart, a few negative outcomes have been observed. First, fewer households were receiving relief. Although one cannot attribute cause to the policy of fupin, the see-saw effects between fupin, social relief and state disaster relief are matters of deep concern. Also, lack of clarity on what activities could be supported by fupin has led to confusion, defaults on loans to risky ventures and over-emphasis on economic viability of the project as against the need of the borrower (Zhongguo Minzheng March


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1990:38, January 1991:10). Secondly, there have been many reports of households relapsing into poverty on the cessation of aid. A number of reasons were blamed (Zhongguo Minzheng March 1992:22–3, Hong Kong Economic Journal 12 February 1993 and 2 May 1994, Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1966, 3:25–6). Among the more significant factors were high inflation, the low standard set for tuopin and quick withdrawal of state aid, inadequate advice and technical help to households to make sure they really mastered production techniques, sudden illness and the high cost of paying for medical treatment in rural areas, ill-chosen ventures which were prone to quick collapse and vast fall in profit resulting from overcompetition, the practice (in some areas) to rotate loans among households irrespective of whether households had benefited, and heavy peasant burdens including levies, fines and fee charges set by the local collective. Besides civil affairs agencies, many state agencies, research institutes, universities and non-state organizations have been sucked into the poverty reduction orbit. As of September 1995, 44 central state agencies and social organizations had been involved in helping 142 poor counties. A few provinces have been sending work teams to their chosen localities for a number of years to help the latter fight poverty. A very potent input was the secondment of cadres to backward areas to provide training and leadership on integrated development. In 1991, the government tried out another approach, building on past, and often negative, experience of transposing destitute communities to more habitable locales. This was the creation of well-planned, experimental development zones which provided jobs, homes and supportive amenities to large numbers of trans-migrants from areas where the natural environment had no potential for economic exploitation— for example, hilly and water-deficient areas. A good case was the development zone in Qingyuan City in Guangdong Province. As of June 1995, 124,000 people have been resettled from the northern limestone country to the lowland area. The project was considered quite successful. The second undertaking in Guangxi involved the movement of 92,000 poverty-stricken residents from mountainous areas. A smaller venture saw the relocation of 732 villages (25,000 inhabitants) to 433 newly formed rural settlements in Fujian Province (Renmin Ribao 7 June 1996). In 1993, the state launched the so-called 8–7 programme with the aim of lifting 80 million out of poverty in seven years. The core components include a food-for-work programme to build roads, wells and other necessities; soft loans for industrial and agricultural projects; and a twinning scheme whereby the central government departments send cadres to poor counties to fight poverty. A recent report by Becker provided the most up-to-date account of the scheme (Sunday Morning Post 28 April 1996). In the mid-1990s, Beijing spent around 10 billion yuan a year on poverty alleviation. It is prepared to double or even triple spending in the Ninth Five Year Plan (1996–2000) period. Despite its effort and determination, the adopted methodology has attracted a lot of criticisms from domestic and foreign experts. Zhu Ling of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences disapproved of the food-for-work programme. When the scheme started in the 1980s, the peasants drafted in to work on building projects were paid with food. They were later paid with shoddy and unwanted industrial goods. Many of the projects were left half-done when local governments ran out of money. More worrying still, ‘money from the central government intended for poverty relief is often diverted to pay salaries or pumped into local industries’ (ibid.). The last charge is nothing


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new in China. Diversion of funds from education, grain purchase, emergency relief and other state projects has been widely reported. Never the less, there were some beneficial effects. First, the use of loans did benefit many poor households. Depending on how much faith one had in official data, a quarter to a third of recipient households may have escaped poverty. Second, limited state funds were recycled to help more people than would have been possible otherwise. Finally, the difficulty of obtaining state money and bank loans at reasonable interest rates generated local self-help. The growth of mutual funds and credit schemes run by the masses and CADs tapped local savings for rural development and mutual aid. Variously called social security funds, social welfare funds or mutual funds, these schemes operated on principles of individual contribution and grassroots management. Some incorporated an insurance element to indemnify peasants from the loss of crops and property. The first project was started in Boyang County in Jiangxi province in 1982. Fund members could borrow money to tide them over hardships or start a productive venture. Hailed as a model, the Jiangxi Disaster Relief, Poverty Aid and Mutual Help Saving Fund was a harbinger of similar ventures. By 1988, Jiangxi had 19,200 mutual funds covering 94 per cent of all villagers’ committees in the province, collecting deposits worth 100 million yuan; in Shandong, such funds amounted to 2,384, accumulating some 68 million yuan. For the country as a whole, 75,000 funds were in operation by the end of 1988 (Shehui Baozhang Bao 14 April 1989). The premium collected and the amount of compensation paid out by grassroots insurance schemes were said to be eight to ten times more than state relief (ibid. 18 February 1988). It would seem that these funds lived up to the new principle of ‘self-insurance’ as against dependency on the state (ibid. 28 February 1989, Cui 1989:176), which had become less and less dependable to the Chinese peasant. The latest episode in the fight poverty campaign made its appearance in the party central poverty alleviation work conference held on 23 September 1996. Both Party Secretary Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng spoke on the urgency of combating poverty: poverty was not merely a social and economic problem, it was an issue that threatened the prestige and stability of the regime. Jiang and Li sternly chastised local leaders for neglecting their duties in helping the poor. Some cadres even took pride in winning the official label of a poor county in order to get central and regional loans. Sustained hardship has given rise to disenchantment of the poor. Other political fallouts included paralysis of party and state organs in poor localities, revival of clan influence and religious worship, and strained relations with ethnic minorities who made up the core population in many poor areas (Beijing Ribao 6 January 1997 and 7 January 1997). Beginning in 1997, the state will allocate additional funding every year to combat poverty, on top of the regular annual commitment of 10 billion yuan. New aid will consist of grants for infrastructural projects and technical training for peasants (1.5 billion yuan), and loans to improve farming and grazing (3 billion yuan). Local areas are also required to match 30–50 per cent of central funding as aid to poor areas (ibid.). More important still, there appears to be a fundamental shift in government thinking on regional development and poverty alleviation. In the past state policy has been guided by ‘the theory of graduated diffusion’ (tidu tueiyi lun). Allowing some areas to get rich first is justified in the name of creating local incentives and quickly building wealth which will later percolate to poorer areas. The expectation has not been fulfilled. While it is true


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that rapid growth has occurred in the eastern seaboard, the west and central regions have been left behind. Furthermore regional inequality is in danger of growing larger still if central intervention remains weak. The recent years have seen many calls for an end to the biased development strategy and greater attention to developing the hinterland—in particular poor territories. Such calls can no longer be ignored. Following from the 1996 conference, the State Council announced a plan to compel rich areas to help poor places. Dubbed ‘fupin xiezuo’ (partnership in poverty alleviation), a rich province/ area is matched with a poor region (Figure 5.1), with the requirement that the former give all the help it can to combat poverty in the latter. Altogether 16 provinces, the three centrally administered municipalities, one special economic zone and three open coastal cities are involved (Ming Pao 14 October 1996). Whether these forced partnerships will work remains to be seen. Genuine cooperation is difficult to exact given a decade and a half of devolution of power to the periphery. In ‘rich’ provinces there are many poor people. In Guangdong, for example, the condition in the hilly limestone areas in the north is decidedly ‘Third World’. Extending generosity beyond the province is not easy. Also, some donor provinces may not be that well off. For instance, the Liaoning economy is weighed down heavily by its hard-up

Figure 5.1 Regional cooperation in poverty alleviation, 1996


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Source: Adapted from information in Ming Pao, 14 October 1996. state industries. In the same vein, it is questionable whether the combined strength of four cities is capable of lifting Guizhou, one of China’s poorest provinces, from poverty. The state expects the provinces to match central funds in poverty alleviation. It is still not clear what sanctions the centre can use if this does not happen. During the reform decade, centre-local relations are often captured by the phrase ‘from the top, there are policies; from the bottom, there are counter-measures’. It may happen in this project as well. China’s poverty reduction endeavour has enlisted powerful external backing. A particularly valuable sponsor is the World Bank. Its Southwest Poverty Reduction Project aims at helping 1.5 million living in 35 of the poorest counties in Barma County, Guangxi Province. This massive piece of social engineering will cost US$240 million and is the largest project of its kind attempted by the Bank. Built on the concept of integrated rural development, it has a comprehensive plan covering health and education as well as wealth creation. Among other things, the Bank plans to provide salaries for 2,000 teachers, tuition assistance for 90,000 children from the poorest families, and extra food to schoolchildren to avert malnutrition between March and May when food reserves run out. Another significant element is loans to peasants to start projects out of a ‘menu’ of choices—for example, buying of goats or planting tung trees, mulberry trees, sugarcane or bamboo. Public participation is to be emphasized. The scheme’s most controversial element is its plan to move 340,000 labourers out of the mountains to work on construction sites and factories in the booming coastal areas (Sunday Morning Post 28 April 1996). It is too soon to tell what the results are. Among the early and unexpected problems are the difficulties of males getting jobs in factories, which want to hire dextrous female workers, and the resistance of women to leave their homes. Many other organizations have involved themselves in microlending projects. A recent issue of China Development Briefing (1996:3) provides a good list of these. The more important ones include: 1 The Qinghai Community Development Project, under the China/Australia Technical Cooperation Programme, involves the provision of micro-credit to 28 townships of Huangzhong, Ledu and Pingan counties in Haidong Prefecture, Qinghai Province. US$1.67 million is available for lending, given by AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development). In addition, US$274,000 is given for technical assistance. CARE Australia has also provided NGO support as a partner in the management of the Qinghai project, including a three-year income generation project for impoverished women, working through the local Women’s Federation. 2 A five-year Xinjiang Women’s Income Generating Project with credit and training components run by the Canadian Development Agency. The basic methodology will be to foster women’s solidarity groups of 25–30 women, to provide a forum for training, collective loan guarantee and a degree of fund self-management. It is expected to form 422 women’s groups, consisting of 10,555 women in 288 villages. 3 Since 1984 Heifer Project International has provided livestock, training and related services to farm families in Sichuan, Jiangsu and Xinjiang. A total of 11,000 households have been supplied with more than 560,000 animals, including cattle, yak, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits and poultry. Training in livestock production technology has


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been given to more than 80,000 people. Farmers make cash payments over a period of years or pass on offspring of the animals received from the project to other needy families. 4 Oxfam Hong Kong has been running integrated development programmes in Luquan and Lancang counties in Yunnan, Weining County in Guizhou and Barma Country in Guangxi, all involving microcredit components. Since 1992, a total of US$250,000 has been disbursed to 5,780 households. 5 In 1994 UNDP began a Poverty Alleviation Programme which involves multisectoral demonstration projects in Yunnan, Sichuan, Tibet and Gansu. Credit schemes follow Grameen Bank methodology, aiming at group guarantees of loans, near commercial interest rates, a repayment schedule that starts very soon after the loan is made, and obligatory group savings. 6 From 1990 to 1995, UNFPA provided US$9.66 million for an ongoing revolving fund project, executed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Women’s Federation branches, in 38 counties of 11 provinces. Some 70 per cent of of the donor money was used to set up revolving credit funds, the remainder was spent on the formation of women’s groups, skills training, literacy programmes and a small amount of training equipment. 7 UNICEF, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, runs a Social Development Programme in Poor Areas, to be implemented in 24 counties in the period 1996–2000. Training and microcredit facilities for women are key elements of the programme along with the strengthening of intersectoral planning and budgeting for social services. To quality for loans, women must join a small group of between three and five. Between six and eight small groups form a large group at village level. The groups help individuals develop proposals for a loan and take joint responsibility for repayment. US$7.8 million has been allocated. 8 UN World Food Programme sponsored a funded scheme of US$930,000 to give women with incomes below the poverty line, credit to invest in income generation. By 1999 loans ranging from 500–1,000 yuan will be made to an anticipated 25,000 women. Loans are for one year and interest is charged at 8.64 per cent. What have been the results of state policies on poverty reduction so far? According to figures released by the Poverty Alleviation Leading Group, 15 million people escaped from poverty every year from 1978 to 1985, 6.4 million a year between 1985 and 1992, and 5 million between 1992 and 1995. The World Bank believes that in 1978 there were 270 million poor people and that by 1985 the numbers had fallen to 97 million. However, no further reductions in poverty were achieved during the second half of the 1980s (World Bank 1992: ix, MacPherson 1995). The figures were reached by calculating the number of people whose incomes were too low to meet minimal nutritional needs (2,150 calories per day) and ‘non food subsistence’, using household data published by the State Statistical Bureau and average national prices for basic foodstuffs. The calculations suggested a poverty line, expressed in US dollars and using exchange rates designed to reflect ‘purchasing power parity’, of 60 cents per person per day. Between 1990 and 1995, the World Bank estimated that there was a ‘modest deepening’ of poverty as the numbers of poor people rose slightly (Sunday Morning Post 28 April 1996). Hence, the job of fighting poverty would become harder still as the remainder would be the hard-core


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poor and those least responsive to policy intervention. In 1994, the Ministry gave a figure of 70 million people who lived in poverty; by yearend 1995, the figure went down to 65 million (Ming Pao 29 February 1996, Hong Kong Economic Journal 20 March 1996, Beijing Ribao 6 January 1997 and 7 January 1997). Yet the World Bank’s latest report released in June 1996—Poverty Reduction and the World Bank: Progress and Challenges in the 1990s—suggests that as many as 350 million Chinese may be classified as poor. The new figure is based on a revised poverty line of US one dollar a day instead of 60 cents (World Bank 1996, The Economist 12–18 October 1996:27–8, China Development Briefing 1996, 3:22). Using the new measure, the proportion of poor Chinese people fell from 31.5 per cent in 1987 to 29.4 per cent in 1993, and to 26.9 per cent in 1995. Had the 60 cents benchmark been used, the number living in poverty would have declined from 8.4 per cent in 1987 to 8.1 per cent in 1993 and to 6.9 per cent in 1994. Given the difficulties of measuring poverty, the true extent of rural poverty may be impossible to gauge. Overall trends, however, have pointed to significant reduction of poverty. Not all the success can be attributed to state policies, be they efforts by civil affairs bureaux, other ministries or external organizations. Economic growth may have been more important in shrinking the size of the poor and indeed helping many get rich. Remarkable achievements apart, daunting problems still lie ahead. Statistics alone cannot give meaning to the extent and experience of poverty in rural areas. From my own observation, published reports and personal accounts from informants, rural poverty is still a grave problem in China. Abject poverty exists in many poor areas. By this is meant that short of starvation, living standards are so meagre that only sheer survival is possible. In these places, the diet consists mainly of mixed grain, legumes and vegetables; meat may be had a few times a year or not at all. Clothing is lacking, so are furniture, household utensils and consumer durables. ‘Housing’ may mean living in shacks, tumble-down structures, mud huts or exposure to the elements. Even in Guangdong, a rich province by Chinese standards, poverty can be extreme in the northern limestone hills. Total belongings of whole families may be worth less than 50 yuan. The subjective experience of poverty is made worse by comparison. Previously, almost everyone had very little. Indeed, poor people were regarded as honourable and politically reliable. Now, the majority have attained basic sufficiency; some have even become rich. Worse still, values have changed. Government propaganda says to get rich is glorious. Poor areas, in the west and middle regions, are resentful of central policies that favour the coast. To poor people in affluent places, the taste of relative deprivation is bitter indeed. Rural welfare in perspective After the above review of welfare arrangements for Chinese peasants, what can one say about the rural welfare effort overall? Table 5.9 provides a summary of known welfare schemes, including recipients, available to the rural population.


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Table 5.9 The rural welfare programme, 1994 and 1995

1994 Aged homes maintained by rural communities

1995

25,205

n/a

– beds

455,055

419,875

– residents

345,406

316,713

21,104

n/a

– no. of disabled workers

294,727

n/a

Social security funds

195,274

197,000

43,175

n/a

148,445

n/a

2,813

3,710

14,854

15,377

Welfare enterprises run by rural communities

– funds for poverty alleviation – mutual aid credit unions – reserve deposited in social security funds (m. yuan) Townships/villages served by a social security network Rural pension schemes – subscribers – pension recipients

34,770,151 51,428,000 172,483

269,000

1,675

3,670

48

99

– households leaving poverty in current year

1,954,088

1,938,000

– no. of aided households at year-end

7,065,000

6,963,000

– total no. of persons given relief

2,302,000

2,349,000

of which, recipients living at home

2,062,553

2,095,000

– relief funds paid by collectives

1,774

1,974

(m. yuan) of which, funds paid to recipients living at home (m. yuan)

1,064

n/a

238,582

253,816

45

40

– funds collected (m. yuan) – funds paid out (m. yuan) Development aid

‘Five guarantees’ relief

Recipients given regular relief from the state Natural disaster victims given state relief (million persons) Source: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995 and 1996.

Bearing in mind the size of need, peasants’ access to welfare is extremely limited. In 1995, 859 million persons (71 per cent) lived in the countryside (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:69). According to a 1.04 per thousand random sample survey conducted in October 1995, the 65 and above age group constituted 6.7 per cent of the population. This translated into 81 million of total residents (1,211 million). It is not known how


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many of the elderly lived in rural areas. Official sources talk about 80 per cent, sometimes 75 per cent, suggesting that between 61 to 65 million elders lived in the hinterland. If the age benchmark came down to 60, the elderly population amounted to some 10 per cent of all age groups, meaning that 91 to 97 million would be rural elders. Another target group is the disabled. Regarding size, all we had was the estimate from a national sample survey conducted in 1987, which put it at 51 million or 4.9 per cent. If the ratio remained unchanged, in 1995, China would have some 59 million disabled citizens nationwide, out of which 44 to 47 million were rural residents (at 75 to 80 per cent). All these are staggering numbers. Whether one is talking about residential care, disability employment, relief grants or development loans, the numbers are remarkably small. Natural disaster relief seemingly covers more recipients. But one must remember that aid is only one-off and extremely meagre. The lack of social security stands out even more starkly. On retirement protection, although some 51 million have supposedly joined a pension scheme, they form no more than 5.9 per cent of the 859 million strong rural population. Less than 2.5 million elders are supported by the masses or are drawing a pension. Furthermore, the so-called ‘pension’ is usually very small, ranging from 20 to less than 100 yuan a month. The underdevelopment of social care means that the aged, disabled and vulnerable persons depend mostly on their families. Despite general improvements in rural livelihood, poverty is still an important issue while wide income inequalities increase the sense of grievance and injustice. Of course, places with a lot of rural industry, convenient transport and abundant natural assets are doing well. In some suburban areas around large cities, living standards compare favourably with those in urban areas. Meanwhile the state’s ability to redress regional inequalities has weakened noticeably. In the absence of adequate collective arrangements for welfare, individuals and families have few allies but themselves to face the hazards of life. Local communities are likewise thrown back to their domestic strengths or weaknesses in safeguarding the common good. The benefits of economic reform are by no means uniformly shared. The impact of state and communal programmes is small indeed against the gigantic scale and complex nature of human needs.

6 Urban welfare and mutual aid Urban aid served very well-defined targets: China’s les misérables. When I began my visits to civil affairs bureaux in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai in the mid-1980s, this was often the first point stressed in official briefings. Welfare services were meant only for the ‘three no’s’, people who had no family, who did not belong to a work unit, and had absolutely no means of livelihood. The narrow scope was not seen as a weakness of the welfare system. It was pointed out that city residents did not need direct state support since all enjoyed the right to work and hence could support themselves and their families. Besides, many work units were self-sufficient in running service amenities. If workers had any personal problems, the danwei (work unit) could probably sort them out too. Residents without employment (like the elderly); or whose work unit did not administer in-house services, could turn to neighbourhood programmes like canteens, reading rooms and nurseries. Finally, the family would not shirk its duty, given the Chinese tradition of respecting the old and nurturing the young. Under the circumstances, only the homeless elderly, orphans and the disabled required special assistance. Over the years, the tone in which such statements were made has changed. Civil affairs bureaux have become more and more conscious of their limitations. Their work was too narrow. In terms of quality, the services they ran were really not up to scratch. More fundamentally, they were by-passing many people who needed help under the new transitional economy. Without reform, civil affairs aid risks becoming totally irrelevant. What are the most pressing problems? To begin with, socialist enterprises are facing keen competition with the non-state sector. Many have run aground. The problem of unemployment worsened during the current decade. The number of workers put on short shifts, early retirement, and unpaid leave has grown. Many have drifted into poverty. Yet they do not qualify for state aid, despite the launch of unemployment insurance in 1986. Besides, people working in non-state firms do not get social security, housing and health care at all, unless they are dependants of someone working in a state unit. To reap maximum benefits, many families embrace the ‘one family, two systems’ formula. What this means is that one spouse takes a job in the private, high-paid sector while the other remains in a state unit to draw the benefits. If the occupational largesse is not offered by either employer, households could only turn to neighbourhood amenities, which are quite unreliable in terms of volume, scope and quality. On a broader level, rapid social changes have transformed urban life in many ways. Under a planned economy, the tempo of life was slow. People lived and worked at a leisurely pace. Now, city folks are busier than ever. With the rise of new opportunities, time comes with a price tag. Young people want to upgrade their qualifications by going to night school, learn English and computers, take a second job, or find more exciting things to do when they finish work in a five-day work week. Many workers snap up part-

Urban welfare and mutual aid

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time jobs to earn more money. Among people keen to get rich or just to protect their savings from inflation, some have become avid speculators in China’s volatile stock market. I personally know of quite a few—intellectuals, retired cadres and ordinary workers—who make some profit but frequently lose out in the high-stake gamble. Even for ordinary families, a reprieve from tedious housework is desirable. The popularity of fast food is one sign of this craving for convenience. In many cities McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken are doing roaring business. There are also strong demands for household help by the hour; most people cannot afford a live-in nanny for economic or space reasons. Rapid ageing and a weakening sense of filial obligations also aggravate the burden of families. While most urban retirees enjoy a pension, tending a frail elder is a big challenge. To women juggling the demands of career, housework and child care, unconditional sacrifice can no longer be taken for granted. Besides, even if they are fit and healthy, retirees long for meaningful pursuits and companionship. In light of these changes, alongside differences in values and lifestyles, generational conflicts are unavoidable. One outcome is changing residential preference. Some old folks actually want to live on their own, in an aged home or retirement apartment, to escape from strained family relationships or avoid being a burden to their children. These stories are common to all societies undergoing modernization. In the face of rapid and deep changes in society, urban aid in China is manifestly inadequate. State welfare programmes stand in dire need of expansion and regeneration. Besides, efforts by the state alone are not enough. Other ways must be found to cope with new and unmet needs. One means is greater exploitation of community resources. The other is the promotion of philanthropy. At the Fourteenth CCP National Congress in 1994 both strategies are subsumed under the rubric of mutual aid. This chaper reviews the initiatives in welfare services and welfare production, social relief, community services, and philanthropy. I shall examine their records and shortfalls and comment on the outstanding issues.

URBAN WELFARE Welfare services and welfare production Welfare institutions for the destitute and welfare factories for the disabled have been the major props of the urban welfare edifice. Before the reform, these amenities were managed by city and county civil affairs bureaux. Total provisions were meagre. In 1979 the 8,000 or so residential homes provided less than 200,000 beds, which catered to 165,000 homeless elders and orphans (see Table 4.1). The majority of residences were converted from ancestral halls and temples or confiscated from former missionary bodies. There were even fewer welfare enterprises. In 1981, the count was some 1,500 small workshops which engaged the blind, deaf and crippled into making such things as straw mats, mops and brooms. When the Ministry tried to revive these projects after the Cultural Revolution ended, many were in a poor condition. Most had suffered from lack of maintenance and repair; some buildings were in danger of collapse. However, funds for renovation and extension were extremely short. Likewise, inmates and disabled


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workers lived poorly. Care was merely custodial. Welfare factories were likewise badly managed, inefficient and backward. They were more like dumping grounds than real work places for the disabled. The MCA set out to address these problems in its 1986–90 Five Year Plan. In the area of welfare services, a plan for expansion and transformation was announced. First, the mode of provision would change from state monopoly to joint involvement by the government and local communities. Second, to improve standards of care, residential care would change its nature from being a venue for reliefi (jiuji xing) to a place that provides welfare (fuli xing). Third, service orientation would progress from material support (gongyang xing) to integration of physical care and rehabilitation (gongyang yu kangfu xiang jiehe). Fourth, programme development should be well planned and coordinated. Large and medium-size cities should build model facilities to serve as demonstration projects. Fifth, residents would enjoy higher standards of support, and working conditions for staff would be improved. Sixth, CAD programmes would admit fee-paying cases and open its doors to serve the general public. Such goals were reiterated in the Eighth Five Year Plan (1991–5). Greater stress was placed on socializing welfare responsibilities and raising service standards. On the quantitative side, the targets for 1995 were 935,000 beds and a bed utilization ratio of 82 per cent. Welfare production enterprises also had to improve their effectiveness and competitiveness. Towards this end, they must attempt technological upgrading, better product mixes, regrouping and reorganization, alongside improvement in management. By 1995, the value of goods and services produced was scheduled to reach 37 billion yuan, with state units fetching 7 billion yuan. What has been the record so far? On the point of diversifying supply, the policy of socialization has been pursued in earnest in the last decade. Chapter 4 details the extent to which privatization in provision, funding and regulation has taken place, and will not be repeated. Here it is sufficient to point out that the overall trend has been a re-ordering of duties, with the result that local communities now play a bigger part in running and funding programes than the state (see Table 4.1). Unfortunately, annual service statistics by type and location are not available. Hence one cannot trace the rise and fall of urban programmes and the contribution of state and community agencies. However, at the end of 1995, 913,621 welfare home beds, other than facilities for soldiers and veterans (61,951 beds), are listed (Table 6.1). By and large, most state-run welfare homes are located in the cities; old age homes are found in both urban and rural areas. Taken as a whole, the urban residential programme consisted of half a million beds catering to fewer than 400,000 inmates. In 1979, the supply was 63,000 beds in the state sector (59,000 residents) and 132,000 beds under non-state auspices (106,000 residents) (Dashiji 1988:757). Thus, over the period, state-run welfare homes just about doubled their capacity while the non-state old age homes increased 2.8 times (369,680 beds over 132,000, assuming most of the 1979 provision was city-based). As far as targets are concerned, the goal for bed numbers had been met while the utilization rate was underachieved by a small margin. On the qualitative front, maintenance standards of inmates (mainly food) have risen steadily. In 1980, the annual per capita living expenditure was 267 yuan in state-run veteran residences, 212 yuan in state welfare homes, and 159 yuan in community-run aged homes (Dashiji 1988:738). Improvements were more marked in veteran homes in


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the 1990s (Table 5.5). In welfare homes and old age homes, better living standards were also attained, more so than in state-run children’s homes (Table 6.2).

Table 6.1 Residential home care, 1995

No. of beds No. of residents Utilization ratio (%) 1 Social welfare homes

913,621

701,920

76.83

124,066

99,264

80.01

– social welfare homes

80,120

62,572

78.10

– children’s homes

10,819

9,655

89.24

– psychiatric homes

27,218

22,784

83.71

5,909

4,253

71.97

(b) Aged homes run by the society

789,555

602,656

76.33

– in cities and towns

369,680

285,943

77.35

– in villages

419,875

316,713

75.43

61,951

45,320

73.15

– CAD-run

49,217

34,310

69.71

– society-run

12,734

11,010

86.46

975,572

747,240

76.59

(a) Welfare homes run by CADs

– other facilities

2 Soldiers and veterans’ institutions

All homes (1 and 2) inclusive


Table 6.2 Annual per capita living expenses in institutions, 1990 and 1994 (yuan)

1990

1994

Social welfare homes

544

873

Children’s homes

656

1,266

Psychiatric homes

469

804

Aged homes

570

679

Source: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1991:240, 1995:216.

Notwithstanding such records, living standards were far behind the general standards in the community. In 1994, average annual living expenses per city resident came to 2,851 yuan (or 238 yuan per month) while the urban consumer price index jumped 25 per cent over that of the past year (China Statistical Yearbook 1995:262, 233). A monthly spending of 73 yuan per head (in social welfare homes) and 106 yuan (in children’s homes) is absolutely miserly.


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What about other aspects of service improvement? The attainments are rather difficult to determine. Judging from published sources and visit accounts, the Ministry has scored some success in raising the professional content of services in large municipal amenities. I have visited a number of social welfare homes and children’s homes in Guangdong, Beijing and Shanghai. In terms of buildings and facilities, the show-case homes can be quite impressive. Personal and medical care appears adequate. Some of the bigger residences have hospitals or rehabilitation wings attached to them so that treatment can be given to inmates as well as to paid users in the neighbourhood. In contrast, facilities in smaller cities and county-seats are much poorer, which is also true of street-run old age homes. The latter, however, are often less regimental and are better placed to offer neighbourliness, emotional and environmental stability, and convenience. Nevertheless, most institutions share some common weaknesses—the low ratio of professionally trained staff, general lack of programmed activities, and minimal therapeutic elements in the care regime. Staffing is a perennial problem. Many homes have problems getting and retaining good staff. Against the value backdrop of materialism and personal choice, occupational preferences have changed. The job of care attendant is seen as low-status, demanding and unpleasant. Neither does it pay well nor offer room for advancement. Urban job-seekers are loath to enter the field. Those who are assigned by labour bureaux are prone to have weak motivation so that staff morale and turnover are constant headaches to agency managers. Given these constraints, many are forced to hire helpers from the countryside, very often poorly educated village women without the faintest professional service mindset. Even among the administrative staff, the lack of training and concepts of professionalism are acknowledged problems. In recent years, the state of children’s homes has aroused concern, even controversy. According to newspaper reports and Ministry sources, many cities have seen a steady rise in the number of abandoned children. From what is known, and from my observation in a few facilities, almost all unwanted children are girls or children with a disability (Guangdong Minzheng 1991, 4:18–19; Johnson 1993). Healthy male babies are never discarded given the cultural preference for boys and the influence of the one-child population policy. In the early 1990s, various Western journalists have reported on incidents of abuse and deliberate neglect in state orphanages. The most serious charge came in January 1996 when a 330-page report by Human Rights Watch/Asia describes them as ‘death camps’ and serving as ‘little more than assembly lines for the elimination of unwanted orphans’. Based on information drawn from official documents and eye witnesses, it says that from 60 to 90 per cent of orphans in state institutions die every year, an abnormally high mortality rate (South China Morning Post 7 January 1996, 8 January 1996, Ming Pao 8 January 1996). As can be expected, such charges met with angry rebuttal from the authorities. While it is extremely difficult to substantiate the facts of this case and wider allegations of official negligence, children’s homes do face serious problems. Staffing is a leading headache, as in almost all welfare institutions. Working with handicapped children requires deep understanding and special skills that untrained staff do not have. In the larger institutions, the Ministry has called in experts to conduct short training. However there is little or no training for special education teachers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and clinical psychologists. Some children’s homes that I have visited are quite congested. Many babies sleep in long bench-like beds


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and are seldom picked up and comforted. This is often caused by a shortage of nurses and care staff. Children without stimulation and individual tending often degenerate into emotionally stunted beings. In some homes, the sight of children gazing into space, crying in despair, senselessly rocking their bodies, and even harming themselves to inflict some living sensation, cannot escape any reasonably discerning visitor. Good physical care alone cannot make up for the intellectual, emotional and social deprivation that abandoned children encounter in their daily lives. The authorities themselves acknowlege that welfare institutions are very short of resources. Their meagre budgets are caught between the need to give better food and medical care to inmates on the one hand and to award better pay and bonuses to staff on the other, if the latter are not to become too demoralized. Many homes have turned to income generation in order to do right by both staff and clients. This is by no means easy or cost-free. From my observation, managers and staff can become so busy with moneymaking that they have less time to do care tasks. Homes that admit self-paying residents also introduce social stratification of a different kind. Residents who pay often get better food, bigger rooms, and special privileges. Still, not everyone who pays can get into a model facility. Many self-financing retirees in social welfare institutions are former model workers, cadres or people with connections. Set against the people of quality, ‘three no’ elderly suffer added alienation. At the same time, the bed utilization rate is lower than one would expect, given the obvious demand in society. One suspects that it might be due to the fee-charging policy: the poor simply cannot afford admission. Social welfare enterprises experienced phenomenal growth during in the 1980s (see Table 4.2). This was entirely due to state policy. To the authorities, the value of welfare enterprises went beyond employment creation and providing incomes for the disabled. They were also important as an income source. Their profits can be injected into welfare undertakings that rely on state subsidy. The first inducement came in 1980, via the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Civil Affairs Joint Circular on the Payment of Income Tax by Welfare Production Enterprises Operated by Civil Affairs Bureaux. This provides for important exemptions (Fagui Xuanbian 1986:167–8): 1 Units employing disabled persons accounting for at least 35 per cent of operational staff to be exempted from income tax; where the proportion is between 10 and 35 per cent, 50 per cent reduction from income tax. 2 One year exemption in income tax commencing on the first month of operation. 3 Exemption from commercial tax and income tax for units producing prostheses for the disabled. The effect was immediate. In 1980, there were 1,309 units; in 1981, the number jumped 20 per cent to 1,574 and to 1,704 in 1982 (Dashiji 1988:744). In 1984, a stronger push came with the announcement of the Ministry of Finance Circular Concerning Tax Exemption Matters for Social Welfare Production Enterprises Operated by Civil Affairs Bureaux. Notwithstanding its reference to state projects, the concessions were applicable to units run by street and rural collectives. The provisions are (ibid.: 206–7): 1 Exemption from turnover tax on incomes earned in labour service, repair and service


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activities in units with disabled workers amounting to over 35 per cent of the operational workforce. 2 Exemption from product tax or value-added tax for units with disabled workers amounting to more than 50 per cent of operational staff; units employing at least 35 per cent disabled workers can be treated similarly if they encounter deficit or make low profits. 3 Exemption from product tax on items made for the use of disabled persons, e.g. prostheses, wheelchairs. The impact was even more electrifying. In one year, production units more than doubled from 6,710 in 1984 (1,869 CAD-run, 4,841 community-run) to 14,818 in 1985 (2,318 state and 12,500 non-state) (ibid.: 744). The incentive for community provision was even stronger. However, state regulatory efforts were unable to keep up with this explosion and many abuses have been discovered. For example, in order to qualify for tax breaks, some units inflated the number of disabled workers. Some borrowed names to boost their quota. Others ‘retired’ disabled staff on a pittance, retaining them on the register but taking on able-bodied employees to fill their place. These scandals led to a number of clampdowns during which bogus units were exposed and punished. This prompted the MCA, under pressure from the finance and tax bureaux, to tighten the rules in registration and inspection (Shehui Baozhang Bao 2 October 1987). By the end of 1995, welfare production had become a significant operation with some 60,000 units employing a total workforce of 2.2 million, out of which 940,000 were disabled workers. The total added value for the year was 39.4 billion yuan. Fourteen years before there were about 1,000 state units and 500 non-state units; by 1995, the numbers were 7,734 and 52,503 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:727). Hence, the growth rate was eight times for CAD-run projects and 95 times in the non-state sector! In terms of labour absorption, community projects also out-performed state units: they had five times more staff and produced eight times more added value. Nevertheless, the economic performance of welfare production as a whole has been disappointing. In 1995, the total added value for locally run units was 35 billion yuan (target: 37 billion yuan) while state units managed only 4.3 billion yuan (target: 7 billion yuan). In the past, the viability of welfare enterprises was not an issue. Like all socialist enterprises, they were just part of the huge state machine and were run more like relief units than economic entities. Enter the economic reform, and expectation on them changed. Many factors accounted for their crisis. On the one hand, there was the problem of poor management. Their low-grade products often failed to satisfy the taste of consumers. A more basic flaw was the low productivity of the workforce, saddled as they were by a high concentration of disabled staff and hefty staff bills for social security, housing and health. Still another weakness was their pre-modern equipment and amenities. Over the years, the state had injected very little to upgrade infrastructure and technology. Being welfare bureaucrats, civil affairs cadres had little knowledge and experience to run an economic enterprise. These problems also plagued community-run projects, although these tended to be smaller and more flexible. These disadvantages snowballed into major handicaps as the urban economic reforms intensified. In a climate of keen competition, welfare production units proved no match for normal firms. The force of their only weapon, tax concessions, became blunted as


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many localities, thirsty for growth, competed to outdo one another in granting favourable terms to lure outside investors. More and more, state enterprises, and welfare factories in particular, were pushed to rely on borrowing instead of state subvention for recurring expenditure. However, commercial interest rates were more crippling for the latter. Equally taxing was the procurement of fuel and raw materials, which had to be bought at market prices since welfare factories enjoyed no priority in getting these from supply bureaux. Besides, not all state agencies followed state policies. For example, some local tax bureaux did not honour the prescribed tax relief; some bank branches also refused to grant credits (Zhongguo Minzheng August 1989:41–3, December 1989:12–13, April 1990:17–19). Sometimes civil affairs departments were reduced to pleading and begging with fellow mandarins. Tardiness and lack of cooperation can inflict untoward hardship on units hungry for cash. I saw such dire straits during some of my field visits. The real test came in 1988 when the state tightened concessions granted to welfare factories. Specifically, 29 product groups were no longer exempted from tax. From 1988 to 1989, for instance, profits per 100 yuan fell steeply from 14.12 yuan to 6.6 yuan (Shehui Baozhang Bao 14 April 1989, Zhongguo Shehui Bao 8 May 1990). In the 1990s, the operating environment continued to worsen (Wong 1993). Most of the tax privileges, bank loans at concessionary rates, and work designated for welfare factories were no longer enforced (Zhongguo Minzheng July 1994:22). Tax bureaux in some areas refused to return tax rebates on which welfare factories depended heavily for their operational needs (ibid. January 1996:38). As a result, more and more units ran into debt and their ability to absorb labour stagnated. Worse still, many have been forced to lay off staff on a small allowance or put them on early retirement. The redundant workers often lived from hand to mouth on loans and occasional handouts from the government. Disabled people have virtually no chance of finding work again. Hence protest visits and complaints to the government (shang fang) have been increasingly common. Besides placement in welfare factories, the government has tried to enlarge work opportunities for the disabled. The means include finding work for the mildly handicapped in open employment, giving loans to enable disabled people to set up a business, exempting licence fees and so on. Placing the disabled in jobs becomes more difficult with the advent of market reforms. Managers often refuse to take on disabled staff, insisting on their right to hire. Some disabled workers are dismissed under the pretext of increasing enterprise efficiency. Some are forced into early retirement (Shehui Gongzuo Yanjiu 1994, 2:6–11). The plight of the disabled has not gone unheeded. In December 1990, the Seventh National People’s Congress passed the Law on the Protection of the Disabled, which became effective in May 1991. The law was built on the principles of securing equal opportunities for the disabled and their full participation in society. Following its release, some areas have passed local legislation to require enterprises to employ a certain quota of disabled workers or face a fine (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 4 August 1992). In 1992, experiments (shidian) were undertaken to speed up employment programmes for the disabled. Working in concert, the State Planning Commission, the MCA, the Ministry of Labour and the Chinese Federation of the Disabled picked eight cities (Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Shenyang, Dalian, Wuhan, Jiujiang, Wuxi) to serve as test sites to explore multiple placement methods for disabled workers. How effective such attempts


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are have not been reported. In the mid-1990s, China as a whole faced an employment crisis. As many as 20 per cent of urban workers may have become de facto unemployed. Older workers, the less skilled, women and handicapped workers are usually the first to go. The prospect of work for the severely disabled is even bleaker. Against this context, the disabled become the predicted victims when the values of competition and efficiency replace the goals of equality and collective obligation. Besides serving the destitute and disabled, welfare agencies have to contend with emerging problems of deviance and ‘social evil’. Their new customers include prostitutes, abducted women, drug users, needy vagrants and ‘professional beggars’. From the late 1980s onwards, many big cities on the coast, like Guangzhou and Shenzhen have set up special treatment centres. According to reports and my interviews with welfare officials in Guangdong, social rehabilitation programmes are not always effective. Working with harlots is particularly difficult. While a small proportion of women are forced into prostitution, the majority are willing operators, especially women from poor villages. Some treat their spell in re-education centres as a temporary respite or even look forward to being schooled by veteran sisters. Equally difficult is reception of vagrants. Each year, vast numbers of rural migrants flock to cities for work. Estimates of the floating population range from 60 to 100 million, of which at least two-thirds are from the countryside. Invariably some become destitute and require relief. However, because of the impossibly large numbers, civil affairs bureaux, which have the job of relieving and repatriating them, are overwhelmed. The new generation of detainees are tough and unruly, unlike refugees from disaster areas who came begging in the cities and were grateful for any help. Present-day vagrants are determined to stay in the cities no matter what. Some make their comeback as soon as they are sent away. CADs insist that a fair number are ‘professional beggars’ who feign misery to cheat money from unwary pedestrians. In Guangzhou, a 1992 survey found that out of 40,606 persons admitted into reception and dispatch centres, 9.1 per cent were genuinely destitute; 60.5 per cent were unwilling to work, habitual beggars or constant returnees; and 30.4 per cent had engaged in criminal activities (Shehui Gongzuo Yanjiu 1994, 2:24–6). Given very small budgets, some dispatch centres become more choosy. Able-bodied vagrants are always charged for food and board, made to work, and detained until their families bail them out. To strengthen the authority of state agencies, social legislation has been stepped up. Recent decrees include the Protection of Minors Ordinance, the Resolution Related to the Punishment of Persons Committing the Crime of Abduction and Sale of Women and Children, and the Resolution Related to the Prohibition of Prostitution and Visit of Prostitutes, all coming into effect in 1992. In the same year, the Adoption Law was also passed to deal with the rising number of abandoned children, loopholes in customary adoption and increasing demand for adoption of Chinese children by foreigners (Wong 1993). Urban relief During the Cultural Revolution, urban relief was denounced as a revisionist practice. Many areas stopped dispensing relief and qualified recipients went without aid. In 1979, social relief for the ‘three no’s’ was revived. What’s more, formerly excluded groups and


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new classes became eligible for the first time. These include unemployed rehabilitated rightists and intellectuals; former political deviants (Nationalist government personnel, spies, Trotskyists); discharged prisoners and offenders with no families; families of criminal offenders who experience hardships; overseas Chinese and foreign nationals resident in China who became needy; unemployed family members of deceased industrialists and capitalists; disabled and unemployed university graduates and sentdown youths returning to the cities; persons who sustain injuries arising from birth planning who need help; redundant workers who have financial problems, and so on (Gailun 1987:180). An analysis of the above list reflects interesting facets of welfare policy under Mao. First, political deviance could disqualify someone from claiming relief. The new rule offers irrefutable proof about the role of politics in need determination in the pre-reform era. Second, family backgrounds were just as important. Coming from the wrong class was sufficient to bar people from welfare whether or not there was genuine hardship. Third, people who had suffered on account of state policies at the time (for example rusticated youths, discharged workers and women injured by abortions) became eligible. The granting of welfare rights served at least three functions. First, it signalled the new spirit of ignoring class and political factors in according social treatment. Second, it accepted that certain state policies could inflict harm and that victims should get help. Above all, the more humane rules gave a clear message, that social stability was a fundamental condition for economic development. Only a process of social healing and equitable treatment of citizens could pave the way for national harmony essential for modernization. Notwithstanding these concessions, urban aid in China remains mean and stringent. Whether in terms of head count or spending, the relief programme in 1995 was unimpressive (Table 6.3). Apart from inmates in welfare homes, less than a million persons received public assistance, with a total bill of only 580 million yuan. The average handout was not enough for subsistence. In 1994, the annual grant per person was 585 yuan for ‘three no’ targets, 421 yuan for hardship families, and 472 yuan for infirm workers laid off from 1961 to 1965. The rates went up significantly in 1995. Even so, the respective figures were only 1,407 yuan, 594 yuan and 538 yuan. Adding the cost of all welfare programmes in urban areas, the spending was 1,560 million yuan, not a glorious sum for China’s 352 million city residents (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:213, 1996:218).

Table 6.3 Urban relief, 1995

Expenditure (million yuan) Number of recipients Urban social relief

209.8

– homeless elderly, disabled and orphans

134.5

158,455

75.3

78,089

– hardship households


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Relief to infirm redundant workers*

252.7

524,487

Other social relief

116.7

201,682

Social welfare service unit expenditure

569.5

– social welfare homes

317.0

48,455†

– children’s homes

59.4

9,543†

– psychiatric homes

125.9

13,463†

Subsidy to collective-run welfare units

67.2

113,995

Rehabilitation programme expenditure

124.8

29,467‡

Reception and dispatch services

220.2

267,522

Source: Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:376–89. Notes: * Workers laid off during the austerity drive, 1961–5. † ‘Three no’ targets maintained by the state. ‡ Disabled workers maintained by the state

The absence of a safety net became too glaring and unforgivable against the backdrop of growing urban poverty. Since the mid-1980s, double-digit inflation has been the norm. In 1995, 41 per cent of urban households saw actual income decline in comparison to 1994 (South China Morning Post 24 June 1996). Low-pay households, welfare recipients and workers who retired early felt the pinch even more. More significantly, unemployment in whatever guise has created a new class of urban poor. According to the State Statistical Bureau, 12.4 million city families experienced poverty in 1995, defined as earning less than 5,000 yuan per household in the year. This is definitely an undercount. For instance, a survey on 60,000 enterprises conducted by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in the same year found that 10 million workers were owed wages by their work units; also, 1,510,000 retirees saw their pensions reduced or stopped. Adding the above figures to the 5,200,000 registered unemployed and their dependants, some 30 million city residents lived in penury (Zhu 1996b). Getting help was not easy. For employees from a hard-up unit, assistance from the danwei was unlikely. Neither did they qualify for unemployment insurance nor social relief. People caught between the bureaucratic no man’s land had to rely on savings, borrowing or family resources. As a welfare department MCA had the duty to respond. In 1994, it finally agreed to initiate a system of social relief on the basis of a ‘subsistence living protection line’ (zuidi shenghuo baozhang xian). Its research institute immediately set out to investigate its feasibility, implementation and administrative requirements (Shehui Gongzuo Yanjin 1995, 6:4). Shanghai was the first city to pilot an expanded public assistance scheme. In June 1993, individuals with an income below 120 yuan per month could apply for aid from the civil affairs bureau to make up the deficit. In 1995, seven cities had expanded social relief, each with its own scale rate—Shanghai, 165 yuan; Dalian, 140 yuan; Qingdao, 96 yuan; Guangzhou, 200 yuan; Fuzhou, 150 yuan; Xiamen, 220 yuan; Wuxi, 120 yuan (Zhongguo Minzheng November 1995:5, Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 1:20–1 and 1996, 4:12). In early 1996, more than twenty cities have such schemes (Zhongguo


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Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:218). The future plan is that large and medium-size cities should implement an income protection programme by the year 2000. All other areas, rural and urban, should do this by 2010 (ibid.: 17). In a society going through rapid marketization, there are many factors causing income insecurity. Relief schemes tied to narrowly defined personal statuses are no longer appropriate. A common safety net is a step in the right direction. Nevertheless there is still considerable uncertainty about where money for the scheme will come from. Civil affairs agencies have notoriously small budgets. In most years, their annual spending did not exceed 2 per cent of public expenditure. There is even less money for relief. A Ministry task force estimated that at least 3.6 to 4.8 billion yuan would be needed to bring 12 million urban residents currently below the poverty line to subsistence, which is 41–55 per cent of the civil affairs budget for 1994 (8.7 billion yuan). Unless the treasury gave CAD extra funding, implementation would be virtually impossible (Shehui Gongzuo Yanjiu 1995, 6:11). Currently three models of financing are being practised, the first two being more dominant. The first approach—the Dalian formula—is to have the state take up funding entirely. What usually happens is that different levels of administration, notably the city and district, divide up the bill, channelling the money to CADs which dispense the relief. In the second and more commonly followed model, the Fuzhou formula, responsibility fragments among all stakeholders. For example, workers who belong to a work unit get relief from their danwei, insolvent enterprises get funding from their super-intending bureau, social insurance bureaux relieve paid-up subscribers, trade unions help retired workers, CADs pay for the ‘three no’s’ and so on. In short, money is scraped from all available sources, with each agency taking care of clients under its jurisdiction. The last and newest approach is the accumulation model practised in Benxi. In that city, a relief fund is being set up. The municipal treasury injected 2 million yuan to kick-start the fund in 1995. From 1996 onwards, regular sourcing comes from 50 per cent of personal income tax, to be augmented by social insurance subscriptions, levies from profitable enterprises, and donations from cadres and party members (ibid.: 1995, 6:27–32). Comparing the three, the state onus model has the advantages of secure funding, uniformity in treatment, and social equity. However, at the present time, it seems unlikely that finance bureaux will be able to find the funds tens of millions of yuan for small and medium-size cities to 100–200 million yuan for large cities—to expand social relief (ibid.: 1995, 6:16–21, Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 4:11, Zhongguo Minzheng September 1996:15, August 1996:25). As for the second formula, it is easier to run and definitely more feasible. However, financing remains chaotic and uncertain. There is no final guarantor should any party default. Also the burden may be heavier for some than for others, which is exactly what happens at the present time. The Benxi formula relies on multiple sources like the second model. The funded approach appears attractive on the surface but is actually questionable public finance. In particular, the legal basis on which subscriptions are levied appears shaky. All three are thus transitional measures. China is still a long way off from weaving a universal safety net for its citizens.


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MUTUAL AID Community services Community services, or shequ fuwu, is a new term coined in the mid-1980s. As a form of practice, however, the history of local self-catering dates from the 1950s. According to the 1954 Regulations on the Organization of Street Offices, street offices are mandatory in cities with a population above 100,000, optional in cities with a population between 50,000 to 100,000, and not required in urban settlements with less than 50,000 people. A street office (SO) is a dispatch agency of the district government, the lowest government tier in urban China. SOs carry out a whole range of political, ideological, economic, welfare and administrative functions at the behest of the state. At the next level, there are residents’ committees (RCs), each containing 100 to 700 households. Residents’ committees assist in such things as law and order, civil mediation, propaganda, public welfare and reflecting views of the masses. RCs are in turn subdivided into residents’ groups (RGs) (20–60 households) which carry out the work of higher-level organs. These three layers are designated as self-managing, self-educating and self-servicing mass organs. Shequ fuwu builds on a model of local self-provision within a geographical area. ‘Community’ refers to an administrative area under the jurisdiction of a street office with its constituent residents’ committees and residents’ groups. In the countryside, the equivalent would be the former commune or township (Shehui Baozhang Bao 25 September 1987). However, the term is usually reserved for neighbourhood service networks in the cities. The management of public projects used to be a modest undertaking. Reading rooms, canteens, nurseries and the like were staffed by retirees, housewives and young people unable to get a state job. People with a danwei frequently frowned on street amenities. Popular preferences were services at the work place or programmes run by the relevant state agency, for instance kindergartens under the education departments and clinics supervised by health bureaux. Nevertheless, precinct programmes were useful for a number of reasons. In the past, town planning in Chinese cities was practically nonexistent. Most residential districts did not have shops or public amenities close by. Furthermore, public transport was hopelessly overloaded. Even now, the bicyle remains the most reliable means of personal transport for commuters. Finally, commercial services were conspicuous by their absence before the market reforms. Hence even makedo arrangements and mutual aid from activists and volunteers meant a lot to people unable to get help elsewhere. The launching of urban reforms created conditions for a bigger servicing role for neighbourhoods. First, there was the pressure to reduce the welfare load of firms and cater to people unable to profit through workfare. Second, rapid changes in lifestyle under the new market economy brought new demands for social care and domestic help. Third, the influence of the community care approach in Hong Kong was also relevant (Wong 1992a, Chan 1993). In 1985, an MCA official, Zhang Pu, spent three months on an attachment visit there and was deeply struck by the key role of NGO agencies in


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welfare. Instead of the government becoming directly involved, the bulk of services were run by voluntary agencies and neighbours (Zhongguo Minzheng October 1987:16–18). He found that system attractive. Upon his return he called for an expansion of China’s home-grown programme. As the personal secretary of the minister, Zhang had the minister’s ear. From 1987 onwards, the shequ fuwu bandwagon charged ahead with full force, at the end of a special symposium convened in Wuhan. This was followed by an experience-sharing workshop in Hangzhou two years later. Between 1990 and 1994, no less than four national conferences (in Chongqing, Lanzhou, Wuhan and Beijing) and two training workshops were held, the latter conducted by experts from Britain, Hong Kong and Peking University (Ministry of Civil Affairs 1995:5). In an article writen by Zhang Pu, community care was said to offer four advantages (Shehui Baozhang Bao 29 May 1987). First, it allows direct benefit to the majority of people living in the precinct. Second, it mobilizes the strength of all sectors of society and corrects people’s dependency on the state. Third, it permits self-management and self-reliance by the masses. Fourth, it makes possible a more decentralized and diversified way of meeting local needs. Similarly Minister Cui Naifu praised the approach as addressing the direct service needs of urban residents while their income needs are met by social insurance. Thus, both aid in cash and in kind serve a common purpose: to consolidate a sense of social security (ibid. 18 September 1987). Above all, community work has a political meaning: ‘to develop the work of community services is useful in regulating human relations, solving social problems, creating a harmonious social environment and realizing the guiding thought of serving the work of the party centre through the work of civil affairs’ (ibid.: 25 September 1987). When the state had few resources to spare for welfare, community care offered an ideologically desirable and financially feasible alternative. A number of cities stood at the forefront of this movement—Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Sha Shi, Changzhou, Tianjin and Hangzhou. In most cities, the foci of work are at the street and residents’ committee levels. Programmes are first targeted at people with special needs—namely, the single elderly, soldiers’ dependants and the disabled— through social clubs, day centres, home help, and ‘care and supervision groups’ (bao hu zu) where two or three volunteers jointly undertake to check on and assist with the daily care of a frail elder. Personal supervision is also offered to youths finishing their stint in ‘work study schools’ (a special facility for children committing minor offences), mental patients and discharged offenders. That social deviants need surveillance and help is not surprising. Interestingly, people with a mental illness are also treated as a public health hazard and potential threat to social peace. In the eyes of ordinary people, deranged people are not just ‘sick’ but in need of subjugation. One such facility is the ‘work therapy station’ (gong liao zhan). Much as its name implies a clinical service, the aims are more mundane—to make sure such people take their daily dosage, not become a public nuisance, and keep them occupied. In Guangzhou, these projects also admit persons with mental retardation (Xu 1994), who are sometimes regarded as ‘crazy’ by the prejudiced laymen and are denied entry into welfare factories. Other services include special schools and nurseries for disabled children, hostels for the elderly, shelter workshops, clinics and rehabilitation centres. Some neighbourhoods have begun to operate community service centres where a number of programmes are housed under one


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roof and manned by a regular staff. Welfare services for vulnerable groups are often provided free or charged for cost only. Cultural and recreational amenities form the second service category. Social clubs, reading rooms, interest groups, training classes, function rooms, and even match-making services for the aged and ‘older youths’ (people in their late twenties and above) are open to all. Normally, only a small charge is levied. ‘Convenience services’ (bianmin fuwu) make up the third type of community offering. Usually run by residents’ committees, bianmin programmes provide tangible services to save time and make daily living less irksome. These range from canteens, markets, repair workshops, supply stores, bicycle stands, telephone booths, to milk, newspaper and coal delivery stations. They are expected to be self-financing and even profit-generating. Beijing’s community programmes are better planned than elsewhere. Since 1986, the capital has promulgated two three-year plans and one five-year programme (1991–5). In the first three-year plan, the aims were to link up services at the municipal, district, street, and residents’ committee levels and to set up at least one welfare factory, one group home for the elderly, one special nursery for handicapped children, and four stations (day care centre and activity centre for the elderly, work therapy station for the mentally disabled, service station for soldiers and their families) at the street level (Shehui Baozhang Bao 25 March 1988). The progress seemed satisfactory. From 1986–8, 97 streets built up the requisite service networks, 12,000 convenience service outlets, and facilities occupying 51,000 square metres. The second three-year plan aimed at consolidation and improvement. By the end of the period, the achievements included 81 community service centres (in 77 per cent of streets), 87 sub-centres, 19,841 convenience service outlets, and 32,000 square metres of amenities. In the 1991–5 period, the goals were further upgrading and full incorporation of shequ fuwu into the design and future plan of municipal services. The authorities were sanguine about the prospects of meeting the targets (Minzhengbu Shehui Fulisi 1995:145–6). Shanghai offers another success story. The municipal leaders, like former mayors Huang Ju and Jiang Zemin (currently General Secretary of the CCP) have become converts of the shequ fuwu movement. The Shanghainese had ambitious plans for their neighbourhoods. They also wanted more modern facilities. By 1993, 96 per cent of streets in the city had a community service centre (each occupying more than 200 square metres), 67.2 per cent of residents’ committees had a sub-centre, and 2,742 residents’ committees established volunteer teams involving 753,000 registered members. Additionally there were 18,000 service spots meting out bianmin services. These services were much welcomed. A random sample survey of 5,000 residents revealed that shequ fuwu topped the twelve projects that the municipal government undertook to ‘do good deeds’ for Shanghai residents (ibid.: 398–406). Shequ fuwu received a bigger push in November 1993 with the issue of China’s first policy document on community services under the joint authorship of 14 state ministries and commissions—Ministry of Civil Affairs, State Planning Commission, State Economic System Reform Commission, State Education Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Public Health, Commission of Sports, State Birth Planning Commission, People’s Bank of China, State Taxation Bureau and National Committee on Ageing. The


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document called for an expansion of the programme, further innovation, raising of standards and more effective regulation. Most important of all, shequ fuwu is designated as a kind of tertiary service and slated to enjoy state funding and unified planning. New concessions include income tax exemption on programme profits and priority in getting bank loans, land, development capital and money for building improvement (ibid.: 311– 13). It is too early to tell how far the intentions have become reality. What is known is that most provinces and cities have passed local regulations. A disquieting outcome is the corporatization of community programmes; whether it can be wholly attributed to state policy remains to be seen. More and more, street and residents’ committees have begun to see their service function as a business. Essentially self-financing, perhaps neighbourhoods have no choice but to think of all possible ways to maximize income. Some have taken up commercial activities with a vengeance. Consequently, many local agencies have lost interest in running non-profit services (Wong 1993, Chan 1993, Chen 1996). Nowadays most programmes, especially convenience services, rely heavily on fee-charging. This is agony for low-income families. Without the ability to pay, their access to aid will be curtailed or denied. Sadly, consumer choice and consumer sovereignty will only be meaningful to people with the means to actualize their wishes and needs. In the course of ten years, community services multiplied rapidly. At the end of 1988, shortly after the campaign was launched, the basic framework began to take shape. The output included 825 group homes for the elderly (8,713 residents), 55,000 care groups (90,000 elders), 550 work therapy stations (8,600 mental patients), 4,000 special nursery places for handicapped children, 2,370 rehabilitation clinics, 250 counselling centres and 127,000 convenience service points (Shehui Baozhang Bao 15 November 1988). By 1995, the total count was 110,000 community service amenities, including 4,380 multipurpose service centres and 234,000 convenience service outlets (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:218). All these add colour and vitality to drab-looking neighbourhoods and ease the life of many residents. A number of comments can be made on the state of community services. First, the services provided are extremely diverse in scale and standard. Some facilities are sizeable, well fitted out and housed in a permanent building. Many projects are minuscule, ill-equipped and make use of temporary or makeshift space. Second, the quality of service is highly variable. Some special schools, for example, are able to recruit qualified teachers, if not trained special education teachers, which are a rarity in China. The majority make use of non-trained personnel and street activists, especially in care groups and mediation work. In the 1990s, the number of unemployed personnel, open or hidden, has soared. These have somewhat replenished the pool of neighbourhood workers. Publicity campaigns by the government have also sought to correct the popular image that a job in the neighbourhood holds no future. Hence, increasingly, many street agencies are able to hire paid staff rather than rely mainly on volunteers. Still, the lack of training is a concern. In the West, community care is said to avoid the pitfalls of institutionalization, over-specialization and bureaucratization. These are not concerns in China (Chen 1996). What is more relevant is the issue of quality. It may not be fair to expect people engaged in ‘doing good deeds’ (zuo hao shi) to provide a sustained service


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at their own convenience. By the same token, the competence of non-qualified staff cannot be exaggerated. Third, apart from bianmin fuwu, welfare support still caters to a small clientele. In 1993, a survey on 24 streets in Guangzhou revealed that only some 14 per cent of residents were aware of neighbourhood pro grammes and fewer than 2 per cent actually used them (Chan 1993). As yet, the ability to make welfare services widely available is lacking. This is related to the fourth point, the dearth of resources—money, space, manpower, materials and authority. In trying to overcome these obstacles, street organizations cannot count on much state support. Most state departments continue to treat grassroots agencies as handmaidens to be given jobs at will, but were insensitive to their problem. The MCA is equally culpable. To its credit, the Ministry has been instrumental in launching and popularizing the programme. Without its zeal, community care would not have got to where it is today. Nevertheless, its contribution is very much confined to professional leadership, token grants and lobbying. Fifth, local resources and leadership play a key role in community development. Rich localities and places with capable leaders who are committed to their service mission will be able to do a lot for residents in their area. Places without the needed human, material and ideational capital will do poorly. Finally, there are wide differences in practice, scope and standards. Most big cities and many medium-size cities have entered the field. Not so for small cities and towns. Even within a city, streets differ a lot on what they can offer. It is likely that inequality will always be a central feature of an approach based on local initiative, decentralized decision-making, and self-raised funding. Philanthropy Community-based welfare used to be the only form of mutual aid endorsed by the state. Under an authoritarian ideological context, voluntary associations of all kinds, whether initiated by individuals, philanthropic agencies, religous groups and overseas bodies were politically suspect. These had been extremely active before the revolution. In the social service arena, their contribution was especially prominent (see Chapter 2). However, after the communists came into power, these were banned almost immediately. They were regarded as potential rivals to state power and not to be tolerated. If one remembers that even the family was subject to periodic attacks and lineage organizations banned, their fate was only natural. After all if the party truly represented the people, what use was there for other bodies? Ci shan or philanthropy, in particular, was seen as hypocritical and dangerous. During the Cultural Revolution it was put down as ‘bourgeois humanitarianism’ and ‘cannon with a sugar coating’ (Dangdai Shehui Baozhang 1996, 5:44–6). In the socialist mind, the motives for charity could not be honourable. Almsgiving of the old kind suggested class patronage, social control, self-elevation, and even imperialism, if carried out by missionaries from the West. The last offended national self-esteem. By 1953, their welfare projects had passed into state hands. Only socialist humanism represented selfless regard between equals, and was thus the only form of moral rectitude cherished by the regime. Hence for over thirty years, China did not have any voluntary organizations beyond the so-called ‘mass organizations’ like the trade unions, women’s federation and communist youth league. These are in fact statesponsored bodies whose primary functions are to serve as a ‘bridge’ between the party-


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state and the masses and to organize their constituents to support state policies. They are also supposed to represent their members’ interests (where these do not conflict with those of the state) and administer welfare programmes as part of their service to members. Their budgets and staff salaries come from the government and their work is closely supervised by the CCP. Almost all danweis, including enterprises, government departments, universities and rural production brigades, have to set up branches of these organizations. Indeed, in the eyes of the public they are part of the state and party apparat, a far cry from autonomous formations of the people (Chan 1994, Chen 1996). Apart from political-ideological reasons, a planned economy could not provide the soil for voluntary organizing. The state monopolized the use of resources or controlled them through its proxies, the state enterprises and production collectives. Without possessing privately owned assets, voluntary associations had no material basis on which to operate. The same applied to philanthropy. China under Mao was the world’s most equal society. The state regulated wages, prices and the distribution of goods and services. Village collectives also pursued egalitarian policies. In short, the search for equity produced social levelling to a remarkable degree. Overall the economy was essentially backward or, in Mao’s words, ‘poor and blank’. As a huge country of poor people, little room existed for private charity. The above barriers yielded gradually in a more liberal economic and social climate. The majority of Chinese citizens live much better than before. In the meantime, income disparities are growing wider. A survey conducted by the State Statistical Bureau in 1995 confirms increased income inequality in the cities. In that year, the highest income earners made 20 times more than the poorest workers; the gap between the richest and poorest 10 per cent of families grew almost fourfold. Dividing families into five bands, 3.8 per cent had an annual income below 5,000 yuan, 36 per cent earned between 5,000 to 10,000 yuan, 50.1 per cent made between 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, 8 per cent earned between 20,000 to 100,000 yuan, and 1 per cent had incomes above 100,000 yuan (South China Morning Post 24 June 1996). This suggests that while rich people may not be too numerous, a sizeable number have the means to give money to a worthy cause. In an interview with the President of the China Charity Federation Cui Naifu, income disparity was given as a factor behind the growth of philanthropy: the richest 20 per cent of urban households had annual incomes 13 times higher than the poorest 20 per cent of rural households. At the same time many people were desperately in need. The checklist includes 70 million peasants in poverty, 8.2 million elders living alone, 200,000 child vagrants, 100,000 orphans and 50 million disabled (Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 1:9, 1996, 5:21). The government simply did not have enough capacity to help all and sundry. The lesson of state running civil society has been a humbling one; the state needs allies to share its responsibility. Welfare socialization becomes the preferred policy. State surveillance on civil society became noticeably more relaxed under the open door policy. One sign of increased liberalization is the growth of new social organizations apart from the official ‘mass organizations’, which prompted the passing of the Societies Registration Regulation in 1989. Among the new crop are agencies in the fields of social work and social welfare. These can be classified into semi-independent (ban minjian hua) and independent (minjian hua) categories (Sun 1995). Examples of the first kind are the China Disabled Persons’ Federation (CDPF), China Social Workers’ Association


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(CSWA), China Charity Federation (CCF), China Youth Development Foundation, and Association of Young Chinese Volunteers. Nearly all of them are instigated by the state and maintain close links with certain bureaux. There need not be any funding relationship between bureaux and their protégés. What usually happens is that semi-independent bodies see themselves as assisting in and broadening the work of the government. Their members are normally state cadres in the ministries who undertake ‘voluntary work’ on the side. Wearing the non-state hat offers advantages. It gives cadres greater flexibility to engage in public relations with overseas bodies. It also eases fund raising. The CDPF, CSWA and CCF, for instance, are ‘hooked’ (gua gou) to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, whose top brass become presidents, patrons or leading lights in the client outfits. The second type of association is not connected to the state. Two noted examples are the Chinese YMCA and the Amity Foundation. More often than not, they were started by famous personages, local leaders and groups of like-minded citizens acting out of an urge to tackle a social problem. Invariably they are responsible for their own funding and policy-making. The China Disabled Persons Federation presents an interesting case. Established in 1988 under the influence of Deng Pufang, the paraplegic son of Deng Xiaoping, the CDPF plays a leading role in policy-making, advocacy, administration and service delivery in work with the handicapped. In line with the structure of other government departments, the Federation has provincial and county level branches which raise their own resources and are responsible for carrying out local projects within nationally established frameworks. Among its many projects are the China Rehabilitation Research Centre, which provides training in rehabilitation; the Disabled Persons’ Sports Association; Disabled Persons’ Performing Arts Troupes; public education campaigns and community-based rehabilitation programmes. Despite its status as an NGO, the Federation has the status of a sub-ministry. Staff are all employees of the government, which covers basic running costs and allocates ‘seed money’ to support service programmes. This is augmented by project funding from international donor organizations and also by money raised privately, both in China and abroad. A parallel China Fund for the Handicapped, administered by the Federation, serves as the entry gate for private donations. Another source of income are the ‘punitive funds’ transferred directly from enterprises which fail to meet employment quotas for disabled workers (variable according to province but usually in the range of 2 per cent of the workforce) (China Development Briefing 1997, 1:6–7). Since the late 1980s, non-state social agencies have begun to offer a range of social programmes. Even church groups with overseas links have been allowed to operate quietly. One of the earliest min-ban (people-run facility) is the Zhi Ling School for the Mentally Handicapped in Guangzhou started by Meng Weina in 1985, with backing from local parents and Caritas Hong Kong (Wong 1992b, Shue 1995, Xu 1994). At that time, services for the handicapped were non-existent and Meng had to overcome a lot of bureaucratic hassles to win acceptance. Later, Meng founded a vocational training centre for adult retardates. In the course of doing her unusual brand of social work, she had tried to seek help from the government to no avail. In the end, Meng’s projects obtained aid from Caritas Hong Kong, which donated a total of 3 million Hong Kong dollars over a period of ten years, as well as help with staff training and programme planning (China


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Development Briefing 1996, 1:15). By 1995, Guangzhou had 13 people-run facilities catering to the elderly and disabled children, with a total capacity of 553 beds, or 10 per cent of all welfare beds in the city. The sponsors include social agencies, enterprises, voluntary partnerships, and private individuals (Shehui Gongguo Yanjiu 1995, 4:37–40). This makes Guangzhou a pioneer in non-state care in the country. A bigger operation is the Amity Foundation, which has a distinctly Christian identity and funding base. Founded in 1985, the agency has 26 staff supporting educational, health, social welfare, and rural development projects on a budget of more than US$2 million in 1995 (China Development Briefing 1996, 1:18–21). Additionally, a number of agencies have become involved in work with orphanages and special education projects. Hong Kong based agencies are particularly active in China. These include Caritas, the Heep Hong Society, the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation, Salvation Army, the Yang Memorial Social Service Centre, World Vision, and Red Cross. In Hong Kong, charitable activity is supported by a thriving Community Chest, Rotary Club and by a Hong Kong Jockey Club Trust which disburses about US$100 million each year to community and cultural projects. The government also encourages their work through subventions to agency programmes (China Development Briefing 1997, 1:5). Since the 1980s, Hong Kong voluntary agencies have initiated contacts and collaboration with government and voluntary bodies on the mainland. For some, the China link is a new overture. For others, it is a revival of old connections disrupted by Maoist isolationist policies. By far, Caritas Hong Kong has the largest China programme among Hong Kong NGOs. In 1980, the agency set up a China Service which operates on an annual budget of between US$1–1.5 million. Besides the Zhi Ling School, it also supports training and supplies teaching aids to the Beijing Child Welfare Institute, the Guangzhou Child Welfare Institute, the Guangzhou Zhi Ai Special School for Mentally Handicapped Children, and the Rehabilitation and Vocational Training Centre for the Disabled in Tangshan, as well as training facilities for the disabled in Nanchang, Wuhan, Kunming, Yanji, Urumqi, Taiyuan, Lanz-hou and Beijing (ibid.: 9–10). Its main partner on the mainland is the Disabled Persons’ Federation. The work of indigenous groups enjoys greater impact. The Soong Ching Ling Foundation has been involved in running children’s playgrounds, science and technology parks, mobile children’s libraries and culture stations in cities and rural areas since the 1930s. Of more recent vintage is Project Hope started by the China Youth Development Foundation in 1989. In its first five years, it managed to raise US$43.75 million to build 749 primary schools in poor villages and provide textbooks and school fees for 1.01 million children who would otherwise have dropped out because their parents could not afford the expense (ibid.: 18). The founding of the China Charity Federation (Zhonghua Cishan Zonghui) marks a bold step in the road to altruism. Established in 1994, the idea was the brainchild of ViceMinister of Civil Affairs Yan Mingfu, Head of the CCP Organization Department during the ill-fated 1989 student demonstrations in Tiananmen, Beijing. After his removal from the party office, he was ‘demoted’ to a marginal agency, the MCA. As a senior cadre in the government, Yan could not take up a direct post in the new organization. Hence the job of president went to Cui Naifu who retired from the Ministry at that time. Another impetus came from the tremendous response to donation appeals after the East China


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Floods in 1991—money raised in China and overseas amounted to over 2 billion yuan. Finally, the policy environment turned more favourable. On 24 February 1994, Renmin Ribao carried a commentary titled ‘Wei cishan zhengming’ (Restore the good name of philanthropy). At the end of the year, ‘mutual aid’ was formally endorsed as a component of social security (alongside social insurance, social relief, social welfare, veteran support and personal savings) in the Fourteenth CCP National Congress (Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 4:6–8). Cishan, as a method of mutual aid, was seen as a rightful means to enhance spiritual civilization and a necessary supplement to state efforts. With its political and moral rehabilitation complete, the CCF obtained state approval as the largest national comprehensive charity organization in China. Its function is similar to the United Way in America and the Community Chest in Hong Kong. By the end of 1995, 27 million yuan had been raised. Two methods are particularly effective. One is to hold ‘walks for charity’. The other is ‘donate one day’s income’. Three priority beneficiaries will receive the largesse—the elderly, child vagrants and orphans. There are plans to upgrade homes and hostels for the elderly, complete cleft palate operations for all orphans within three to four years, improve the facilities in orphanages, and find a way to send street urchins back to school (CCF Brochures; field interview, September 1995; Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 1:9–11). Yet another form of philanthropy is China’s social welfare lottery, with an express aim of raising money for welfare. Despite much controversy surrounding its launch in 1987, the lottery became very popular. Cumulative sales amounted to 8 billion yuan, with half of the sales completed in 1995 (Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 2:46–7). Many people were attracted by the prizes in cash and kind. By far, the most exciting variant is the Mark Six (see Chapter 4). This was a blatant form of gambling and has been banned since 1994. Because of the lottery’s profit-making potential, many state agencies, firms and even private individuals have entered the fray. Many abuses, like failure to hand down prizes, passing out shoddy goods as prizes, and corruption have been reported. For most punters the lottery is a way to win lucky money. The charity motive can be easily forgotten. It is necessary to view voluntary and philanthropic endeavours in perspective. The impetus behind private initiatives derives from a mixture of social activism, humanism, and frustration with state neglect of the needs of deprived citizens (Shue 1995). Programmes for the handicapped, for example, answer a very real need in a Chinese society notorious for its lack of sympathy for the disabled. Aid to orphans in state homes relieves the dire shortage of resources in such places, and, hopefully, prevents abuse and neglect of children unable to protect themselves. The re-entry of church groups with foreign sponsors marks a new openness in Chinese society. Forbidden to operate for 30 years, they are still not allowed to proselytize although their social work activities are welcomed. In truth, China needs help from all quarters to plug gigantic shortfalls in social care. The resurrection of cishan is a move in the right direction. Much as it has been vilified by the communists, philanthropy has a cherished place in Chinese culture (see Chapter 2). It also provides a socially approved channel for moral investment, status seeking and political insurance for the new rich. Nevertheless, one must not inflate the importance of private initiatives. Even if one counts the good that comes from the community programmes, the impact of mutual aid on people’s lives is perhaps small and


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piecemeal. Overall, local and voluntary endeavours have scarcely made a dent in social care for citizens caught in the storm of the market economy. For people unable to buy their own requirements, mutual aid is a palliative at best. As yet, most Chinese citizens do not live in comfort; the scope for donations is probably constrained in the foreseeable future. Besides, the impulse to do good and help one another may get lost in a mobile and busy society. However valuable it may be, voluntary action cannot substitute for a framework of stable, publicly funded services. This has been the experience in most countries. Its most important roles are filling the gaps and service innovation. Yet its salience in moral terms must not be forgotten. In it is located the value of citizen action when state efforts prove to be either inadequate or detrimental. Civil society will thrive better when people have the freedom to organize and act compassionately to ease the pain of others.

7 The role of the state THE CONCEPT OF THE STATE The concept of the state in China is open to a variety of interpretations. First, it can be understood in the limited sense of government organization, namely, the state apparat. Under this conceptualization, two commonly used terms are relevant. The first and more abstract is guojia, usually translated as ‘the state’, which entails the organized strength of centralized and united political power, and stresses its coercive functions. The second is zhengfu, usually translated as either ‘government’ or ‘administration’, which refers to the administrative units of the state’s organization, from the central to the basic levels (Goodman 1984). However, in order to understand the full implications of the Chinese state, it is not possible to ignore the other components. Schurmann, for example, identified three major hierarchies that make up the Chinese political system—namely, the Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army and the government (Schurmann [1968] 1970:532, 557). It is commonly agreed that a workable concept has at least to include the state-party matrix (Schurmann [1968] 1970, Barnett 1967, Pye 1981, Goodman 1984, Burns 1989b). The fusion of party and state is a key feature of socialist polity (Furtak 1986). In China, this phenomenon is even more pronounced. As the vanguard party, the Communist Party leads the nation. The CCP takes the theoretical position that the party makes policy but the state implements it. In practice, the party subsumes the government. Not only does it set policies, it also controls personnel appointments and engages in the minutiae of public administration. In terms of structure, the party and state systems have separate organizations. Where operation is concerned, however, overlapping leadership in the two hierarchies and domination of party over government prevail at every level. This results in a fusion of power and functions. In the case of the MCA, the Ministry sees itself as the executive department that carries out the dictates of the party. The party group (dang zu) is the actual command centre of ministerial decision-making. Most important regulations and policies are issued jointly by the CCP and State Council or subordinate ministries. Given the above reality, the concept of the state includes the combined will and authority of the two structures. A subsidiary issue is the place of mass organizations. For practical reasons, statedirected agencies like the labour unions, women’s federation and youth federation have not been distinguished from the state system. One reason is that they are not autonomous from the state. Their office-bearers are appointed by, and also paid by, the state. Leadership in these organizations is exercised by the Communist Party. Typically, they identify themselves as the transmission belt between the party and the masses. They do run a plethora of programmes for their members—for example, sports and cultural amenities, sanatoria, counselling, and advice services. Nevertheless, their welfare work is

The role of the state

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not extensive enough to form a distinct delivery system, and, for space reasons, will not be examined here. For the purpose of this study, the Ministry of Civil Affairs—in discharging its welfareoriented functions either directly or through the collectivities it supervises—is offered as a case study of the Chinese approach to social welfare. In the foregoing review of the Ministry’s welfare remit, both before and after the economic reforms, the conclusion is that the role of the state is restricted. State organs are the agency of last resort, never the first port of call. Overall, the crowning characteristic of the approach is one of welfare residualism. The reform challenge did not alter the old template. Unlike the deep changes in the institutional and structural framework, reforms in welfare have been incremental and adaptive. State input remains limited. In fact, when one compares the postrevolutionary arrangement with the traditional pattern, there are striking continuities (see Chapter 2). This chapter examines the state-related themes which have been discussed earlier, and tries to reassess and synthesize them. I shall reassert my argument that residualism derives from the state’s negative conception of relief and welfare. This is in spite of the state’s formal commitment to an ideology of needs-based distribution, universal right and equality. The departure from the ideal mode is in turn influenced by the state’s ideas on production, consumption and distribution. The result is that the CAD approach is seen as having limited utility when compared with other instruments of change. In addition, a paucity of resources—funds, manpower and authority—imposes limits on state generosity. The new line of socialization of social welfare is an attempt to breathe new life into a deficient welfare system and to readjust the state-society relationship. In a nutshell, the interaction of definition, values, strategies and resources in the context of change has shaped the state’s policy on civil affairs.

THE FORMAL POSITION ON WELFARE In Chinese communist ideology, social welfare reflects the strength of the socialist system, which is no longer marked by exploitative relations, an unfair monopoly of the social product and inequality between social classes. With the overturning of the old capitalist social order and a new society put in its place, social welfare has a real chance of full realization. This is contrary to its use as a palliative and bribe given to the masses to win their compliance under capitalism. It is also totally different from the use of charity and philanthropy, both indigenous and Western, which infringe on the dignity of the Chinese people (Lu 1986, Gailun 1987:7, Wenxuan 1985:183–5). Under Chinese socialism, social welfare supposedly manifests true humanitarian regard between equals. Citizens are now masters of their country. They have the right to work, a decent life, and assistance in old age, sickness, disability and in times of adversity. All these guarantees are written into the Constitution and other social legislations. In all the Five Year Plans, the state’s commitment to social security is repeatedly affirmed. As a social institution, social welfare is part of the superstructure. It is devoted to meeting the human needs of citizens more fully and compassionately. What makes this possible is not only the new structure and ideolology: the state, as an instrument


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reflecting and defending the will of all people, pursues policies that bring this about. Its methodology of central planning and redistribution assures a fair distribution of the social product (Ferge 1979:244–7). The principle of allocation differs according to the stages of societal development. In the transitional phase, people are still rewarded on the basis of work (Ching-shi Yen-chiu no. 4, 14 April 1962, Chung-kuo Chingnien no. 8, 16 April 1959). When communist society is attained, distribution will be based on need. Meanwhile, a deduction from the social product for the purpose of social insurance and common welfare is regarded as legitimate. This is because citizens have fulfilled their economic and civic duty to society. Hence they are entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labour (Wenxuan 1985:180, McAuley 1991).

THE CONCEPTION OF WELFARE WORK UNDER CIVIL AFFAIRS The above position gives social welfare an esteemed and secure place in China. As a consequence, it is logical to expect strong state commitment to all policies that maximize public welfare. In reality, however, one is immediately confronted with the anachronistic case of the CADs. Why is there divergence between theory and practice? I believe the answer has to be sought in the very nature of social welfare work under civil affairs. In the official view, civil affairs work is distinguished by three special characteristics— duoyuan xing, qunzhong xing and shehui xing (multifaceted, people-oriented, and socially oriented) (Cui 1989:23). In his speech to the Eighth Civil Affairs Conference (1983), the civil affairs minister explained the meaning of these concepts (ibid.). Duoyuan xing refers to the multifarious contents of civil affairs work. The Ministry is responsible for over twenty programmes of diverse nature which cater to different targets. Qunzhong xing clearly lays down the aim of civil affairs as serving the masses. The subjects of change are human beings. Its work method builds on the mobilization and the support of the masses, typified by the theory of the mass line. Meanwhile, shehui xing is manifested by its intimate and wide social implications on social life and social problems. The same proclamations are contained in the Preface to the Ministry’s official history (Dashiji 1988:6) and other ministerial publications. Another volume locates the uniqueness of civil affairs work in its social, political and administrative nature (Gailun 1987:11–13). The definition of the first feature, its social nature (shehui xing), is similar to the above. Additionally, its aims are to deal with social conflicts, resolve social problems and mediate relationships in society. The second is its political nature (zhengzhi xing). Political meanings permeate all aspects of its work. In different periods, political considerations dictate its work content and emphasis. Thus their work agenda is affected by objective requirements of the time as identified by the party and state. The third is its administrative nature (xinzheng xing). CADs are state agencies. Their job is to execute state policies in accordance with state laws, regulations and policies. They carry out their work using administrative means and their authority is clearly defined. Such elaborations of official jargon are not too informative. They are still too abstract and all-embracing. Their meanings often overlap. Such traits as social directedness, mass


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line, political orientation and administrative nature can be applied to almost any other line of work. There is no reason why they cannot be used to describe the aims and means in education, health, agricultural development, policing, or, indeed, party work as a whole. An alternative line of enquiry is needed. I believe a more promising strategy is to explore the ‘what’, ‘who’, and ‘why’ dimensions of civil affairs. Regarding the ‘what’ question, civil affairs programmes fall into three kinds, as clarified in the Eighth National Conference on Civil Affairs: In the wake of this epoch, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has to carry out the duty to build grassroots power organs, resettle demobilized military personnel, administer preferential care for veterans and their dependants, provide relief for disaster victims and the poor, provide social welfare services, and take care of the division of administrative areas, reforms in funeral and interment and marriage registration. Among these tasks, some contribute to the work of government construction, some contribute to social security and some contribute to civil administration and management. (Huibian 1984 vol. 1:3–17, Dashiji 1988:581–94; emphasis added) Here our focus is on its social welfare dimension. Among the three, political construction and civil management involve universal services of an administrative nature. For example, the job of building grassroots polity—namely, the formation of townships and villages, villagers’ committees and residents’ committees—is oriented to whole communities. Likewise, the work of registering marriages and social organizations, and of reforming burial customs and mediating in territorial disputes, serves the general population. Only in social security work is there the notion of selectivity and individual orientation (Wenxuan 1985:26–7). An examination of the population served by CADs consistently identifies two groups of beneficiaries. CAD-speak calls them ‘the most adorable’ (zui ke ai) (martyrs, soldiers and their dependants) and ‘the most pitiable’ (zui ke lian) (‘three-no’ categories, the disabled, hardship households and natural disaster victims) (Cui 1989:111). In the reform period, welfare programmes have been made available to other persons in need. Nevertheless the emphasis is still placed on serving the customary clientele. This points to the third variable about the paradox—the cause of dependency. Except for those whose requirements are transitory (for example, serving soldiers, hardship households and disaster victims), the chronic recipients of welfare all lack the skills for unassisted survival. Such groups comprise people who have lost their rightful claims for support since they do not belong to basic social organizations (family and work unit). Given their dependence, such goods and services as are given to them smack of relief and charity, with the exception of veteran aid. Indeed, the authorities heap praises on soldiers and brainwash the masses into seeing preferential aid as a public duty. Most soldiers’ families need help on a short-term basis anyway. In practice, however, many rural communities, especially those in poorer areas, resent this burden. They resent welfare levies for the long-term poor even more. Mass feelings notwithstanding, the management of the marginal population is a political necessity. The reasoning can be gleaned from the following official statement:


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Whether from the perspective of the past and present, or from the volume of work involved, welfare administration is ultimately the core work (zhuti gongzuo) of civil affairs bureaux. The basic aim of doing such work properly is to readjust social relationships, solve social problems, promote social stability and the four modernizations. (Wenxuan 1985:25) During the reform decade, the theme of social stability has been highlighted. This is due to the expected unsettling effects of economic and social change. Towards the late 1980s, when the reforms threw up sharp social divisions and unrest, CADs were even more conscious of such a mission (Shehui Bao Zheng Bao 17 May 1988). Accordingly they gave themselves the task to ‘grasp the situation, deepen the reforms, and play the part of a stabilizing mechanism to contribute to socialist modernization’ (Speech of the Minister of Civil Affairs in the Ninth National Civil Affairs Conference, 17 December 1988, Cui 1989:170–96). After the Tiananmen crisis in 1989, and especially upon the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, social stability became the paramount concern of the state. Time after time, ‘wending yadao yiqie’ (stability overrides everything) has been the rallying call of the leadership. The obsession with order, or the avoidance of disorder (ruan), has obvious implications: the tightening of political control and the quelling of ideological dissent. The slogan has also been used as the ultimate justification for all authoritarian policies. Social welfare work, not much valued as a high-priority government task, nevertheless contributes to social stability in important ways. It relieves the pressure towards social polarization by relieving poverty. It manages social problems such as the vexing concerns of support for the aged and the disabled, who are easily harmed by the weakening of family ties and the advent of market competition. It pacifies a potentially dangerous group, the veterans, by preserving their special privilege of a government-assigned job. It relieves the pressures on enterprises, state agencies and families by asking neighbourhoods to increase the scope of social amenities. Finally it adds to the semblance of an orderly society by aiding and controlling miscreants of all descriptions (for example vagrants, prostitutes, drug users and all disadvantaged elements) by coming to their aid. Whether these efforts succeed or not is another matter. It is important to show that the government cares, and, more importantly, that the government acts. In the reform decade, the ethos of unconditional state assistance for the needy encountered another ideological challenge: the onslaught of market values. The claim for relief for the ‘three-no’s’ and veterans was regarded as legitimate. Denying them would be inhuman. Nevertheless, under the influence of maximizing incentives and efficiency, the appeal for welfare restraint became greater. Apart from groups who could not earn their living, others should rely more on themselves. If aid became unavoidable, it should be repaid as far as possible. Thus, material relief to poor households was turned into loans. The change was justified as a better use of scarce resources and the supremacy of self-reliance over dependency. Furthermore it could save valuable state resources, which were short and subject to competing claims. It could also forestall calls for extending welfare to hitherto excluded groups.


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Since 1983, the fupin programme has expanded substantially. It reached its peak in the middle of that decade. Interestingly, a side effect has been a decrease in the number of aid recipients. This is probably due to the partial diversion of relief funds to create capital for development loans, directly denuding resources for helping diaster relief victims and the indigent. The MCA implicitly acknowledged this, after they were chastised by state leaders for neglecting relief in the mid-1980s. As a result, the Ministry promised to place priority in guaranteeing survival before granting loans for economic projects. Ministry statistics also show a strong correlation in the number of people receiving different types of aid (Table 7.1). The years 1986–9 were boom years for fupin. Those years also saw a notable dent in the number of people given social relief and disaster relief. The only programme which was not affected by the see-saw pattern was veteran aid. The number of beneficiaries has grown consistently throughout the reform period. Whatever the fortunes of other relief schemes, military personnel and their families

Table 7.1 State relief programmes, 1979–95

Year

Veteran aid (10,000 persons)

Social relief (10,000 person/ times)

Fupin recipients (10,000 house holds)

Natural disaster relief (10,000 person/times)

1979

173.6

5,567.8

–

13,036.5

1980

222.4

5,510.9

74.5

9,444.5

1981

233.6

5,198.1

155.7

9,483.7

1982

240.8

3,181.7

241.4

9,864.4

1983

251.2

3,042.8

343.6

8,655.7

1984

267.3

2,992.1

551.0

7,095.4

1985

283.3

3,729.7

853.3

6,061.4

1986

339.8

3,000.3

1,090.0

6,738.6

1987

366.3

3,121.3

1,064.9

6,710.9

1988

378.5

3,141.6

1,040.5

6,029.2

1989

411.7

3,297.0

916.7

6,716.6

1990

425.7

4,968.2

756.9

8,215.0

1991

434.8

4,889.4

756.0

12,496.4

1992

433.7

4,129.5

720.9

8,136.7

1993

441.2

4,146.8

701.9

7,308.4

1994

441.9

4,175.8

706.8

8,227.6

1995

448.8

4,015.3

696.3

7,937.6

Source: Zhongguo MinzhengTongji Nianjian 1996:223.


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received attention from the state. This suggests also that the goal of national defence dominates over the value of a survival guarantee for vulnerable groups in the state welfare agenda.

THE COMMUNIST CHANGE STRATEGY Communist thinking assigns a peripheral place to direct programmes of welfare and relief. This stems from faith in structural transformation in laying the foundation of a welfare society. After the seizure of power through violent revolution, Chinese communists, like communists elsewhere, embarked on holistic structural reform. In villages, land reform, purge of landlords and struggle against lineages started immediately after liberation. By 1958, agricultural collectivization had been completed. Peasants henceforth became members of communes, earning the right to work and a means of subsistence if the collective produce was sufficient for everybody. Indigent and unattached persons could get help through the ‘five guarantees’ and communal relief schemes. In the cities, the nationalization of industry, commerce and handicraft allowed the state to monopolize the employment of labour. Urban residents need only await job placements by labour bureaux. Once employed, they enjoyed life tenure and had their social needs met by their employers. Furthermore, the control of prices, equalization of wages and state subsidies of goods and services protected people’s livelihood. Hopefully, under these circumstances, the conditions giving rise to dependency would be eradicated. To the extent that hardships still occurred, the instances would be few and the causes tied to individual situations. Such optimism was characteristic of communists in Hungary (Ferge 1979) and the Soviet Union (McAuley 1991), who saw no need to develop autonomous social policies, believing that broad societal policies were already sufficient. The above beliefs notwithstanding, the Chinese communists are realistic enough to admit that poverty will remain a problem for society for a long time. The cause is attributed to economic backwardness. Before the advent of abundance associated with communist society, the population has to put up with frugality. But when the economy develops, and there is faith in its ultimate arrival by dint of the superiority its social system, common prosperity and full realization of human potential will result. The communist formula for rapid growth is tied to its perception of the proper place for production, consumption and distribution. Mao followed the Marxist dictum that the means of production must expand faster than the means of consumption and that output must be maximized in order to enhance final consumption (Pairault 1988). The commitment to high rates of production results in two economic consequences. First, in the belief that the key to fast growth lies in industrialization, especially in heavy industry, the priority in state investment went to heavy industry, then light industry and finally agriculture. Consequently, structural imbalances have become prominent. Among its many effects, one is the justification of better reward structures for the urban industrial elite, and, in corollary, to tolerance of lower standards of life for the peasantry. Another outcome is shortage of consumer goods and services, both in volume and quality. The second economic consequence is the de-emphasis of consumption and


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commitment to high rates of investment to expand production even more quickly. Thus in the first five Five Year Plan periods, the investment rate averaged 24.2 per cent, 30.8 per cent, 26.3 per cent, 33 per cent, and 33.2 per cent respectively (China Statistical Yearbook 1986:61)—higher than in other socialist societies. In the reform era, given the fundamental goal of modernization, the weight of accumulation has actually increased. The average rate was 34.3 per cent during the Sixth Five Year Plan, 36.6 per cent during the Seventh Five Year Plan and 38.9 per cent during the Eighth (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:46). The preference for low social consumption has grave implications for social policy. Social consumption consists of both personal and collective aspects. The neglect of private consumption meant that consumer items have been deliberately kept scarce. This was also a result of under-investment in light industry and the tertiary sector. Hence, for a long time, people’s living standards stayed at basic levels. At the same time, the neglect of collective consumption meant low input in fields like health, education, housing and welfare. To the leadership, social consumption was non-productive. With a population as huge as that of China, raising social consumption even marginally would consume massive resources that should go into the expansion of production. Hence, for as long as three decades, the masses have been asked to embrace attitudes of forbearance and making do for the sake of socialist construction. It was not until the reformers came back into power that people’s livelihood was regarded as a matter of importance. Having lost its ideological legitimacy as a result of the Cultural Revolution turmoil and 30 years of over-mobilization, the party-state was aware that modernization was the only hope of winning back the trust of the people. Modernization promised a better life for all, not more sacrifices for socialism. Deng Xiaoping himself had said that poverty should not be equated with socialism. Socialism, if it is to be accepted by the people, must deliver common prosperity. Just the same, the thirst for rapid growth has persisted. The implications for distribution have been obvious. For decades, industrial workers, as the vanguard in the modernization process, had been designated as welfare elites. For example, they were the first group to benefit from labour insurance. In the opinion of Kallgren, their privileges reflected the importance of the country’s chosen path of development (Kallgren 1969). The other effect was a stage-derived maxim of distribution. In the socialist stage, work merit must become the allocation criterion. As the economy is still backward, payment by labour is necessary (McAuley 1991). It is also equitable. Mao expressed this point bluntly when he said, A sharp distinction should…be made between the correct policy of developing production, promoting economic prosperity, giving consideration to both public and private interests and benefiting both labour and capital, and the one-sided and narrow policy of ‘relief’, which purports to uphold workers’ welfare but in fact damages industry and commerce and impairs the cause of the people’s revolution. (Selected Works [1961] 1968, 4:203) The need to reward hard work and deter dependence has a logical result: the assertion of


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welfare right through work. In the urban economy, a work-based system serves important functions. It has allowed the retention of a low income policy, thereby maximizing the investment capacity of the state when work units administer welfare to their employees based on need, in accordance with the so-called di gongzi gao fuli (low income, high welfare) policy. Also, by linking reward to work attitude and effort, welfare policy has been firmly grafted to the promotion of work incentive. The expectation was that labour discipline and productivity would increase. Unfortunately, such hopes did not materialize. While everyone with work ability was made to work, eating from the big pot did not encourage individual effort. The economic reforms had to be invented to curb the disincentives endemic in the socialist production and distribution process. To enhance productivity, individual remuneration would be linked to performance. The more one produces, the more pay and bonus one will get. People who are lazy, weak and lacking in ability will be penalized. Another concern was the need for realism. This was reflected by actions to rein-in demands for improved pay and welfare from urban dwellers. All along, city residents have enjoyed a standard of living two to three times higher than that in the countryside. While the peasantry have been educated to endure lower standards in light of the backward economy, it was equally crucial to remind urbanites of the need for restraint. Further improvements in remuneration would be regarded as selfish. More worrying still, a larger income and welfare gap would further alienate the peasants. This would in turn dampen the morale and incentive of Chinese farmers, with negative impacts on the production of food and raw materials. At the same time, the notion of desert underlies the distribution principle in collective agriculture. In the communes, all labourers earned their living through working for the collective. Work points so gained were converted into cash and grain. Even children and the elderly were given work points according to the amount of work they put in. In distribution, the official line was ‘more production, greater share; more production, more food’ and ‘no labour, no food’ (Chung-kuo Ching-nien no. 8, 16 April 1959). Peasants were told not to aspire to urban living standards. For a long time to come, such hopes would not be realistic. Instead they should be proud to stand on their own feet. Individual self-reliance and local self-sufficiency, both traditional values, were espoused. Absolute equality is only possible in communist society. Thus, under the influence of the traditional and post-revolutionary values, loafers and malingerers have no place in a society that regards work as a right and a duty. To the extent that CAD beneficiaries cannot earn their right to support through labour, inferior treatment is ideologically correct and in line with cultural expectations. To explain the seeming ‘neglect’ of welfare matters in China, Chen Sheying suggests that this has to do with the nature of the socialist state. Unlike in market economies, where wealth remains largely in private hands and the state plays key roles in the redistribution and provision of welfare (wherein the term ‘welfare state’), the socialist state in China is an ‘economic state’. Its primary function is economic management: ‘socialist-communist states in general and the Chinese state in particular are mainly characterized by their economic function, rather than social welfare administration’ (Chen 1996:166–7). This duty is clearly written into the Constitution. The rationale is that production is the original and most important driving force of human


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history and that the growth of the means of production is the decisive factor in the final analysis. To speed up the advent of communist society, the masses should give up their short-term interest and welfare. Consistent with its preoccupation with economic construction the state adopts a ‘radical’ social welfare policy. The aim is ‘to promote the well-being of the vast majority of the people by administering and boosting economic production, equalizing resource distribution, and guaranteeing work opportunity and economic security’ (ibid.: 180). Possessing essential differences from capitalist states, the welfare approach of socialist economic states is logical and should not be judged on the same terms as capitalist welfare states. In the history of Western industrialism, social policy has likewise been influenced by conservative values. The Victorian principle of less eligibility legitimized differential treatment between welfare recipients and the lowest paid workers. Similarly, the more modern variant of workfare is a spiritual cousin to Chinese welfare philosophy. Indeed, the work ethic is an important imperative in most societies. Even in advanced welfare states bureaucratic fiats, like requiring income support applicants to demonstrate willingness to work, enter training schemes, and keeping the benefits level low has the express purpose of preserving independence (Wilson and Wilson 1991). In recent years, the concern to deter long-term dependency has received a new stress in Anglo-American countries. For example, there have been attempts to limit the period of assistance and to require welfare recipients to work as a condition of getting aid. Even in Western and Northern Europe, which have traditionally provided more generous levels of support to the unemployed, the thinking has been to lower the income replacement ratio and to tighten unlimited assistance. In short, conservative ideology has witnessed a revival in the 1980s and 1990s.

DUALISM IN WELFARE From the above discussion of Marxist theory, welfare and relief work emerges as a separate category of human need. Work contribution or its absence divides up the population into separate segments. Typically CAD welfare programmes fall into the area of non-productive collective consumption. With the exception of soldiers, the recipients do not make any contribution to socialist production. Thus their claim for support cannot be justified on the ground of social justice. Although there is formal commitment to an ideology of needs-based distribution, dependence is despised in a system that weds welfare to work. Traditionally, frugality, the work ethic and self-reliance have had moral significance. They further attain the distinction of ideological imperatives in a stagerelated distribution hierarchy. Failing to earn their rewards in life, dependent persons cannot make compelling moral claims on society. This leaves only social stability and the demonstration of socialist superiority as valid grounds for granting social support. As is to be expected, welfare services administered by CADs become peripheral services for the peripheral population. The inferior position of welfare recipients is also related to their inability to assert their claim. The ‘most pitiable’ group suffer strong social stigma. Indeed all of them—soldiers and veterans, ‘three-no’s’, and peasants lack organization. Veterans have tried to set up


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their own association. This was specifically forbidden (Wang 1993). The state is actually very selective in allowing the type of associations that can register under the Societies Registration Regulation. One can surmise the reason for this. Tight control prevents the formation of potentially troublesome bodies to challenge state policies and to operate as pressure groups. In the case of welfare clients, their difficulties are compounded by lack of money, education and articulation skills. With the exception of Shang fang activities (petition visits to state agencies), other means to influence state policies are not available. Also, barring retired soldiers, people like the elderly, disabled and chronic poor pose little risk of rebellion. A corollary to differential threat may be that while the most pitiable groups have to languish on paltry handouts, military personnel always get a better deal. The conservative approach to welfare has a number of characteristics. First, eligibility is defined after a process of successive elimination—recipients entitled to regular support must have no family, no work unit and no means of livelihood. Second, decentralized responsibility is insisted upon. This means that the family and the collective must share the responsibility with the state. The case is pushed to the extreme in the area of compensation for military service. Rather than building a pay structure for a modern army, the state prefers to keep the old custom of requiring preferential aid from the local masses. This practice may have been understandable when the Red Army was basically bands of rural guerrillas constantly on the move and when local soviets had a shaky fiscal base, but it is ludicrous in a powerful modern state. Since the reform began, the welfare contribution of local communities has vastly increased. They, rather than the state, have played a bigger role in meeting local needs. Take social welfare institutions as an example. In 1979 community-run welfare homes accounted for 67.7 per cent of beds and 64.2 per cent of residents (Dashiji 1988:757). In 1991, they were responsible for 79.3 per cent of beds and 77.3 per cent of residents (Zhongguo Shehui Bao 13 October 1992). By 1995, non-state services accounted for 82.2 per cent of capacity and 82.1 per cent of residents (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:724). Another case is the community service scheme. Since 1987, the Ministry has promoted it relentlessly. By 1988, community social services were available from 69,700 service points (wangdian) across Chinese cities. In 1991 the number of service points rose to 93,000 (Shehui Baozhang Bao 13 March 1993) and, in 1995, to 344,000 (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:218). Significantly, this burden is borne by urban neighbourhoods, with little or no subsidy from the state. The state’s expenditure on civil affairs has been miserly, whether before or after the reform (see Table 7.2). In the Fifth and Sixth Five Year Plan periods (1976–80, 1981–5), civil affairs spending made up a mere 1.62 per cent and 1.65 per cent of state expenditure (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:196). Its share decreased to 1.52 per cent in the Seventh Five Year Plan period (1986–90) and to 1.49 per cent during 1991–5. From 1949 to 1995, the civil affairs bill in the state budget had counted for less than 2 per cent in most years. The consistency of this low commitment is very striking. Seemingly, the state’s dim view of civil affairs has changed hardly at all.


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Table 7.2 Civil affairs expenditure, 1979–95

Year

Expenditure (100 m. yuan)

% of state expenditure

1979

1880

1.48

1980

1748

1.44

1981

1923

1.72

1982

1960

1.70

1983

2181

1.69

1984

24.05

1.59

1985

30.01

1.64

1986

34.57

1.51

1987

36.20

1.49

1988

40.13

1.50

1989

47.35

1.57

1990

52.22

1.54

1991

63.26

1.67

1992

62.96

1.42

1993

69.67

1.40

1994

86.79

1.50

1995

103.20

1.52

6FYP (1981–85)

114.70

1.65

7FYP (1986–90)

210.47

1.52

8FYP (1991–95)

385.87

1.50


If the total expenditure on civil affairs had stood out for its meagreness, how much actually went into welfare programmes? China Statistical Yearbook 1996 provides breakdowns of the civil affairs expenditure into five items: (1) expenditures on preferential treatment, (2) retirement pensions, (3) social welfare relief funds, (4) relief funds for natural disasters, and (5) other programmes (Table 7.3). In 1979, out of the total spending of 2,211 million yuan, veteran aid took up 357 million yuan (16.1) per cent, pensions took up 289 million yuan (13.1 per cent), social welfare relief funds took up 541 million yuan (24.5 per cent) and natural disaster relief took up 1,024 million yuan (46.3 per cent) (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:234). In 1995, the civil affairs budget amounted to 11,546 million yuan. Out of this sum, 2,911 million yuan went to servicemen (25.2 per cent), 2,278 million yuan went to pensions


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(19.7 per cent), 2,419 million yuan went to social welfare relief funds (21 per cent) 2,727 million yuan went to the relief of natural disasters (23.6 per cent) and 1,211 million yuan went to other programmes (10.5 per cent) (ibid.). During the last 17 years, the share of preferential aid and retirement pensions in the total budget went up significantly. Meanwhile the ratio for social welfare relief funds dropped appreciably and that for natural disaster relief funds fell sharply. The shrinkage of the disaster relief budget is indeed worrying, In the 1995 China Statistical Yearbook, separate listings of rural relief funds were provided (but not in the 1996 volume). In the year 1978, 245 million

Table 7.3 State welfare expenditure, 1979–95 (100 m. yuan)

Year Total exp.

Preferential treatment

Retirement pensions

Social Disaster welfare relief funds relief funds

Other programmes

1979

22.11

3.57

2.89

5.41

10.24

–

1980

20.31

4.51

3.41

5.36

7.03

–

1981

21.72

4.54

3.44

5.08

8.66

–

1982

21.43

4.86

3.48

5.45

7.64

–

1983

24.04

5.39

3.62

6.58

8.45

–

1984

25.16

6.20

3.64

7.92

7.40

–

1985

31.15

7.13

4.88

7.71

10.25

1.18

1986

35.58

8.77

5.77

8.69

10.64

1.71

1987

37.40

9.87

6.68

9.04

9.91

1.90

1988

41.77

11.32

7.59

9.73

10.64

2.49

1989

49.60

14.43

8.56

10.80

12.88

2.93

1990

55.04

16.61

9.60

12.07

13.33

3.43

1991

67.32

17.21

10.32

13.18

22.51

4.10

1992

66.45

18.45

12.40

14.36

15.89

5.35

1993

75.27

20.78

14.09

17.01

15.40

7.99

1994

95.14

24.78

20.12

20.55

19.42

10.27

1995

115.46

29.11

22.78

24.19

27.27

12.11


yuan out of the total 1,891 million yuan state welfare funds was spent in rural areas, accounting for 13 per cent of the total budget. In 1994, rural relief stood at 386 million yuan. This was only 4 per cent of total welfare outlay (China Statistical Yearbook 1995:221). Taken together with the drop in disaster relief, this could only mean that less money was being spent on aid to rural dwellers after the reform commenced.


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One must, however, refrain from inferring too much from official data. The deficiencies are only too obvious. Figures for many years are missing. The classifications are too rough and ready. For instance, there is no breakdown into departmental expenditures such as staff emoluments, programme expenses and money actually received by clients. Besides, the categorization changes from year to year. Hence, the entry in one yearbook cannot be compared to that in another. Finally, the figures compiled by the Ministry of Civil Affairs differ somewhat from the China Statistical Yearbook published by the State Statistical Bureau. Given such defects, one’s search for reliable, consistent and comparable records suffers immensely. The state’s prejudice against direct welfare and relief does not mean its role is anywhere less central in Chinese social life. In contrast, there is another position on social welfare which is macroscopic and universalist in orientation. Under this broad framework, the state is a positive and major player assuming such roles as architect, enforcer, arbitrator and resource supplier. First of all, the state and the party designs the blueprint of a socialist society. Second, through structural engineering, the plan is turned into reality. In doing so, a variety of policy instruments are used—employment, income, pricing, rural-urban trade, family policy, and so on. The state’s third role is involvement in arbitrating values, privileges and state-society relationships. If policies can be regarded as ‘authoritative allocation of values’ (Easton 1953), policy readjustments reflect changing priorities. The economic reforms have brought about a new configuration of social interests. They have also liberalized state authority in economic and social life (Burns 1989a), not to mention exposing people directly to market risks. Hence, reforms in social security are designed to protect people from market contingencies, noticeably unemployment. They are also needed to cater for changing demography—rapid ageing in particular. Finally, the state engages in direct provision of resources. Prominent examples are social insurance funds committed through state-owned and large collective-owned enterprises. As extensions of functional bureaucracies or horizontal layers of administration, these enterprises ultimately rest on a featherbed of state subsidies and policy loans. In a sense, the state is the largest employer, albeit in the urban economy only. Under the circumstances, what belongs to the state and what belongs to the work unit becomes hard to define. The priority given to the broad and narrow conceptions of welfare can be glimpsed by comparing state expenditures on different programmes. Table 7.4 compares the state civil affairs expenditure (d) with social insurance and welfare funds for ordinary workers (a) and also the spending on retired and resigned staff (b). The paltriness of civil affairs funds is only too obvious. In 1979, civil affairs expenditure accounted for only 17.5 per cent of the insurance and welfare funds. In time, all welfare expenditures have soared. The total labour insurance and welfare bill for workers has shot up by 22 times over the 1979–95 period. The growth of benefits for retirees was even more striking, at 47 times its 1979 level! In comparison, the rise in civil affairs expenditure has been more modest. Only a 550 per cent increase was recorded. As a proportion of labour insurance and welfare funds, however, it has fallen sharply. In 1995, state spending on civil affairs amounted to only 4.4 per cent of the insurance and welfare bill for the urban workforce. In Table 7.5, we have further proof of the state’s preference to guarantee livelihood


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through the use of subsidies rather than direct dispensation of welfare and relief. At the start of our review period, total state price subsidies and handouts to deficit units amounted to 7.1 billion yuan, five times more than the expenditure on civil affairs. The burden of subsidies has increased in the reform period. By 1994, these have grown to 68.1 billion yuan, or 13 times the civil affairs expenditure. Taken as a whole, budgetary figures reflect national priorities. The above review suggests that differential importance is attached to state policies and programmes. It is clear that in the scramble for state funds, the urban workforce always get the lion’s share. For them, the welfare system is generous and resembles an institutional model of welfare. In contrast, the allocation for civil affairs, including money for its welfare programmes, has always been miserly. State inputs are more like left-overs than a major commitment.

Table 7.4 Selected spending of government, 1979–95 (100 m. yuan)

Year

Total insurance and welfare funds for staff and workers (a)

Total insurance and welfare funds Total civil affairs for retired and resigned staff and expenditure workers (b)

(c)

(d)

1979

107.3

32.5

(2.8)

18.8

1980

136.4

50.4

(3.3)

17.5

1981

154.9

62.3

(3.3)

19.2

1982

180.5

73.1

(3.2)

19.6

1983

212.5

73.1

(3.2)

21.8

1984

257.7

106.1

(3.0)

24.1

1985

331.6

149.8

(3.7)

30.0

1986

420.1

194.7

(3.9)

34.6

1987

508.7

238.4

(4.1)

36.2

1988

658.1

320.6

(4.2)

40.1

1989

768.0

382.6

(7.5)

47.4

1990

937.9

472.4

(7.2)

52.2

1991

1,094.7

562.0

(7.6)

63.3

1992

1,309.5

695.2

(9.2)

63.0

1993

1,670.2

913.7

(12.0)

69.7

1994

1,958.1

1,218.9

(17.5)

86.8

1995

2,361.3

1,541.8

(19.4)

103.2

Sources: China Statistical Yearbook 1995:685, 690, and 1996:733, 736; China Report—Social and Economic Development 1949–89:372. Note: Figures in parentheses in col. (c) refer to pensions distributed by civil affairs bureaux to


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army and local government cadres.

Table 7.5 Total state subsidies to enterprises and price subsidies, 1979–95 (100 m. yuan)

Year

Total price subsidies

Total subsidies to deficit enterprises

1979

79.2

67.3

1980

117.7

60.0

1981

159.4

64.2

1982

172.2

52.7

1983

197.4

103.0

1984

218.3

68.0

1985

261.8

118.5

1986

257.5

324.8

1987

294.6

376.4

1988

316.8

446.5

1989

370.3

598.9

1990

380.8

578.9

1991

373.8

510.2

1992

321.6

445.0

1993

299.3

411.3

1994

314.5

366.2

1995

364.9

327.8

Sources: China Statistical Yearbook 1995:224, 1996:227; China Report—Social and Economic Development 1949–89:218.

CONSTRAINTS AND POTENTIALS In forming a policy on civil affairs, the contribution of ideas mediated through Marxist theory, values and change strategies is crucial. Also influential are resource issues. In one sense, the negative valuation of social welfare under civil affairs is itself a constraint, albeit an ideological one. Besides, the state’s ability to implement a chosen policy is affected by the resources it has at its disposal. As a bureaucratic agency, the first issue confronting the Ministry of Civil Affairs is role ambiguity. Its impossibly wide range of duties, their disparate nature, and lack of coherence are not conducive to the emergence of agency goals and mission. The second difficulty lies in organizational deficiency. During the reform years, the central and local


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civil affairs departments have gone through a number of reorganizations. After a number of re-engineering exercises, the Ministry organization has become more streamlined and specialized. The local agency structure, however, is still inadequate. The weakest link is at the township and village levels, where the majority of the rural masses are administered. There, the whole range of civil affairs duty is usually handled by one to two civil affairs assistants. In richer areas, local governments have started to employ more cadres. More backward places can ill afford even one person. In poor locales, parttime appointments are quite common. Obviously, this manning structure is woefully deficient. Sadly, the Ministry is powerless in influencing the personnel matters of local areas. The reason is that since the 1980s the responsibility for funding and manpower deployment has passed to local governments. Civil affairs bureaux are hamstrung by other manpower issues. To begin with, there has always been a shortage of cadres to fill approved posts. In townships and villages, part-time appointments and high staff turnover are perennial maladies. Nevertheless, local government is prone to brush such complaints aside since civil affairs is a small programme. When unwise personnel decisions are taken, CADs at higher levels have no power to intervene. What they can do is plead the case for adequate manning and staffing continuity. They can also criticize recalcitrant local leaders. Ultimately, whether these tactics will work depends entirely on the resources and priority of local areas. Furthermore, CADs tend to get landed with a high concentration of elderly and poorly educated cadres. One way to tackle the problem has been cadre education—witness the opening of civil affairs institutes. Nevertheless, training capacity is restricted because of shortage of funds and expertise. In the foreseeable future, professionalization of welfare work appears unlikely. Meanwhile, inferior pay and welfare benefits, poor working conditions, and low social status also take their toll on the morale of staff. The financial woes of CADs are unbroken tales in the long saga of a half-starved organization. Throughout their history, there has never been a time when CADs have had enough money to do the job. For clients, the impacts are clearly negative. These include restricted access, limited service scope, meagre benefits, substandard living standards, dangerous buildings, unmet needs, social stigma, and the need to subsist on the charity of neighbours. At agency level, CADs have their own struggles. The more obvious ones are totally inadequate organizations, manpower shortage, scarce funds for training and buildings, poor pay, and difficulties in administering programmes, especially at the grassroots. In private, welfare officials are unhappy about their lack of status. Their pay is usually lower than that of colleagues at comparable ranks in other bureaux. Some complain that within local government they are treated like second-line supplicants. Top leaders often shun them to avoid pleas for more money. In the past, civil affairs agencies could not get any university graduates to fill cadre posts. Only in the last few years has the picture begun to change. Some feel resigned to taunts about their selfless devotion to the needy. Given the choice, welfare work may not be the preferred occupation for the ambitious. In other enterprise societies, the social work profession finds itself in a similar situation. Despite increasing affluence for society as a whole, the economic difficulties faced by civil affairs departments have increased rather than eased. On the one hand, the transformation of the institutional framework has severely challenged the ability of the


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collective to satisfy the welfare needs of their members. The weakening was more pronounced in villages after communes disappeared from the scene, wrecking arrangements that financed communal welfare. In the cities, the state’s drive to make enterprises more competitive, the divergent forms of ownership with differential access to staff welfare, trimming of health and welfare bills by enterprises, introduction of labour contracts, and legitimation of redundancies make people’s livelihood more precarious. Whether in town or country, new insecurities are creeping up under the ethos of economic competition. As expected, the poor, the aged, the disabled and the unemployed have been the hardest hit. High inflation rates only serve to aggravate the situation. Since the start of the reform, the Chinese people have had to live with significant inflation, which was unknown under the command economy. The years 1980, 1985, 1988–89 and 1993–95, whether measured in terms of overall price index or consumer price index of residents, are particularly bad years (see Table 7.6). Using 1985 as the base year, the urban consumer price index has risen to 429.6 in 1995, while that for rural households rose to 291.4 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:255, Table 8.2). To people on low incomes, steep price rises are painful. Civil affairs targets are even more vulnerable. Because traditional agencies are under stress, the civil affairs system has been asked to relieve some of their pressures. The irony is that CADs are themselves equally constrained, if not more so. On the one hand there is no prospect of prising more money from central government, which glorifies economic construction but abhors dependency. On the other hand, they have to squeeze harder from the same agencies in order to privatize or, in the Chinese parlance, ‘socialize’, the welfare burden.

Table 7.6 Overall price indices 1978–95

Year

Overall retail price index (preceding year=100)

Overall consumer Overall retail price price index of index (1978=100) residents

Overall price index of residents

1978

100.7

n/a

100.0

n/a

1979

102.0

n/a

102.0

n/a

1980

106.0

n/a

108.1

n/a

1981

102.4

n/a

110.7

n/a

1982

101.9

n/a

112.8

n/a

1983

101.5

n/a

114.5

n/a

1984

102.8

n/a

117.7

n/a

1985

108.8

109.3

128.1

100.0

1986

106.0

106.5

135.8

106.5

1987

107.3

107.3

145.7

114.3

1988

118.5

118.8

172.7

135.8

1989

117.8

118.0

203.4

160.2


144

1990

102.1

103.1

207.7

165.2

1991

102.9

103.4

213.7

170.8

1992

105.4

106.4

225.2

181.7

1993

113.2

114.7

254.9

208.4

1994

121.7

124.1

310.2

258.6

1995

114.8

117.1

356.1

302.8


I have argued elsewhere that social welfare socialization (shehui fuli shehuihua) is a euphemism for social welfare privatization (Wong 1994a). The retreat of the state has occurred in provision, funding and regulation—key indicators of privatization. These points have been taken up in Chapter 4. In the last decade and a half, greater pluralism in welfare has undoubtedly emerged. As far as actual policies are concerned, the Chinese government has tacitly accepted devolution. Furthermore, it has openly espoused feecharging, community care and informal care, as well as reforms in financing and management. In the 1980s, privately run services were almost non-existent. In the current decade, amenities operated by individuals, like nurseries, old people’s homes, facilities for the handicapped, have made their appearance. Many non-government organizations have likewise operated with overt state blessing. Even the old demons, missionary groups from the West, have joined in the fray. The case of the China Charity Federation (CCF) is instructive. Under Mao, charity had a bad reputation. Now, the verdict on philanthropy is overturned (see Chapter 6). In the final analysis, the Ministry’s quandary is symptomatic of the predicament of the state as a whole. Economic liberalization has enriched enterprises and local areas but eroded the fiscal powers of the centre. In 1980, total government revenue accounted for 25.7 per cent of GDP; in 1995 it shrank to 10.7 per cent (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:22–3). Relative to GDP, central government expenditure showed a similar decline, from 14.8 per cent in 1980 to 3.4 per cent in 1995 (ibid.). The diminution of state ability is not confined to the centre. Local government expenditure as a proportion of GDP has fallen as well, from 12.4 per cent in 1980 to 8.3 per cent in 1995 (ibid.). By the same token, mounting budget deficits, hefty subsidies, official corruption, and a defective taxation system have diminished the state coffers. Without adequate financial backing, public intervention loses its effectiveness. In welfare terms, the benefits of devolution, both political and financial, are mixed. On the positive side, the effects are a less oppressive state, more personal freedoms, a wider sharing of wealth with local areas and enterprises, and more incentive for hard work. On the other hand, there are the costs of reduced leverage of central agencies in policy implementation, redistribution and social development. The results are wider disparities, group conflicts and social instability. From the viewpoint of potential, the government is able to locate allies from the repertoire of traditional values. First, the importance of cultural emphases on frugality, industry, self-reliance and collective mutual help collude with revolutionary stresses on


145

sacrifice, the proletarian work ethic and local self-sufficiency. The similarities of old and modern ethics make the masses more receptive to official pleas to lower expectation for direct assistance, to assume more responsibilities for personal welfare, to earn one’s livelihood through honest labour and to make do with meagre collective provisions. In short, revolutionary values dovetail nicely with cultural mores. The government has been smart to build on this foundation and exploit it to serve contemporary ends. Another set of values centre on the duty of the family. Here, emphasis on family obligation provides a very potent source of legitimation to legal requirements for family support. When professional programmes such as child care, aid to the handicapped, job placement, counselling, and home help remain underdeveloped, families bravely soldier on without compensation. In particular, the precept of filial piety is invoked to furnish the moral basis for old age support. Thus, limited state aid is accepted as natural because family care is always preferable to help from impersonal bureaucracies. Chinese familism, after being stripped of such feudalistic remnants as patriarchal authority, subjugation of the young, exploitation of women and excessive devotion to family interest, can still preserve its role as the leading agency of social care. Hence, ‘fine traditions’ have been merged with new socialist ethics to build up socialist spiritual civilization. This explains why all state policies related to the family aim to preserve its integrity. The family is simply too useful to be discarded as a welfare tool. Its role in welfare will be detailed in Chapter 8.

CONCLUSION In welfare, state action is the outcome of the interaction between theory, values, change processes and constraints. A passive role of the state in direct welfare and relief matters results from a narrow conception of social welfare under civil affairs. Notwithstanding Marxist commitment to needs-based distribution, egalitarianism and the leadership role of the state and party, the state has other priorities. In its desire to accelerate growth, the leadership has chosen to emphasize the requirements of production, distribution according to work, and deferred consumption before the advent of abundance. Hence, direct handouts represent unearned assistance for non-productive citizens. As such, they can only be justified on the grounds of humanity and social stability, not social right. On a broader level, the state subscribes to a comprehensive concept of social change whereby macro-societal policies pave the way for a just and equal society. In order to realize this goal, the state accepts a primary responsibility to maximize welfare in the broad sense. Ultimately, state intentions are held back by economic backwardness. In spirit and practice, the Chinese approach to welfare has little affinity to Mishra’s structural model of social policy. Its bifurcation into two modes—one broad, one narrow—and differential entitlements for the rural masses and urbanites, give the Chinese welfare system a unique character from other welfare systems. The reform has further heightened the need to redefine the scope of public and private responsibilities. Unable to meet its traditional obligations, the state seeks to limit its role in social care by openly embracing welfare pluralism. As a result, civil society earns more freedom to direct its affairs. It also gathers more responsibility. Between plan and market, the redistribution of social duties in


146

Chinese society has not been smooth and cost free. Unable to fend for themselves, vulnerable groups are at a grave disadvantage. At a time when their need for help is stronger than ever, their claim is weakened by current stresses on independence, entrepreneurship and success. Even welfare agencies are expected to become more selfsufficient. Sadly, wider use of fees can only limit access for the poor. This does not mean that the non-poor should be denied the use of state welfare services. But as amenities have been short, linking usage to payment will crowd out those without means. Serving different clients in the same facility, some paying and others not, is likely to bring in stratification of treatment among users. The inevitable consequence is further marginalization and alienation of the already deprived. In a society that extols economic success, welfare clients are the losers. Their loss of social esteem will compound their economic failures. This double punishment raises questions on equity and humanity. Who should bear the responsibility for their welfare if even the state is unwilling or unable to come to their aid?

8 Utilitarian Chinese familism INTRODUCTION In industrial societies, large-scale collective intervention in social welfare was linked to the decline of the family as a result of modernization (Wilensky and Lebeaux 1965). Hence the need arose for professional services to support, ameliorate and substitute for the loss of family functions (Kahn 1979). The family in Asian cultures is a particularly important institution (Dixon and Kim 1985). None of the East Asian countries have become welfare states. Despite extensive Westernization, strong familism prevails, allowing governments to hail it as a superior form of old-age protection and a key ingredient in the making of the East Asian economic miracle. Chinese communist leaders are strong adherents to the ethic of self-reliance and family responsibility (Dixon 1981). Welfare residualism was linked to official disapproval of dependency, and preference for fast mobilization strategies as well as resource constraints. The end result has been a decentralized approach to welfare, with work and social organizations given the job of providing for their members alongside their primary economic or professional function. When one examines the historical legacy, it is apparent that such practices had deep roots in the past. In particular, the group insurance principle enshrined in Chinese familism has functioned as the de facto welfare institution. This chapter dissects the relationship between the family and welfare policy after 1949. The conscious promotion of utilitarian familism has been one of the major building blocks of China’s welfare system. The unspoken assumption is that the ubiquity of family care makes direct welfare and relief unnecessary. Four related themes will be analysed below. To begin with, I shall examine the communist view of Chinese familism. Despite its many negative aspects, the overall verdict was that traditions could be made to work for the benefit of individuals and society. Thus, immediately after seizing power, the Marriage Law (1950) was promulgated to create new forms of marriage relations. Next, I shall analyse the impact of state policies—production, distribution, social security and other services—on the family. From this review, there is overwhelming evidence that by and large state policies have served to maintain family integrity. This was especially true in the pre-reform era. The third theme is the relevance of family status in questions of welfare and relief. More importantly, access to civil affairs aid is contingent upon the absence of family support. If aid is to be made available, the household rather than the individual is the unit of service. Then, I shall examine the challenges faced by the contemporary Chinese family. These came from three sources—as a result of demographic change, the reform process, and ongoing modernization. Since the 1980s, emergent problems have emphatically tested the resilience of the welfare system. In the attempt to respond to social change, ‘socialization of welfare’ is the strategy of choice. However, this has the effect of multiplying the family burden. To highlight the


148

interdependence of welfare and the family, old age support is used as a case study. It is found that on the one hand, the observance of family duty was used to justify limited bureaucratic intervention. On the other, under-provision increased the need for intergenerational dependence. The chapter ends with a conclusion on the relationship between the family, polity and economy. Before proceeding with the above analysis, two related concepts need clarification. The term family (jia) refers to a social unit established by blood and marriage, and the relationships between members. In particular, members of families have definite rights and duties under the law. On the other hand, household (hu) refers to a group of persons sharing a common budget and residence. In the majority of cases, households are primarily made up of families. Not all family members live under the same roof. Nevertheless, a lot of interaction goes on between family members despite separate accommodation (Ding 1987, Pan 1990, Yuan 1996). The focus here is on the sociological family rather than the household, as the latter arrangement cannot capture the essence of affective and material exchange endemic in Chinese families.

THE SOCIALIST VERDICT ON THE FAMILY In China, the family rather than the individual has always been regarded as the basic constituent unit of society. The official designation for the family is the cell of society, shehui xibao (Pan 1986:2–3). To Marxists, the family fulfils key functions in two productive processes—the production of resources for living and human procreation. Therefore people living in any time and place are subject to the restraints imposed by the development of not only labour relations but also family relations (Hunyin Jiating Tansuo 1985:151–2, hereafter HYJTTS, and Pan 1986:2). With the advent of communist society the economic and social significance of the family will disappear. However, in the socialist stage, the family still remains a unit of shared consumption and personal welfare (HYJTTS: 150). This carries with it the implications for unequal inheritance and distribution of rewards based on labour. In addition, Chinese communists recognize the baggage of cultural tradition. They know full well the moral and social significance of the family. Family honour and security is the motivating force for hard work (Harrell 1985); for the sake of the family, almost any hardship and sacrifice can be endured. Precisely for this reason, devotion to family interests weakens loyalty to the state and higher moral causes. So, very early on, the leadership saw the family as a beast needing to be tamed (Wang 1983). Chinese sociologists have delineated many functions for the family -production, reproduction, consumption, education, sexual gratification, emotional support, child care, social security, political functions, religious worship and so on (Pan 1986:165–75, HYJTTS: 87, Yue 1989a: 20–5). After the revolution some of these functions, such as ancestor worship and lineage loyalty, were ripe for abolition. Others could be taken up by more appropriate agencies; for instance, the job of education, production and political participation could be turned over to schools, enterprises and party organizations. Still others could be shared by the family and society—for example, childhood socialization, social security and health care for workers. However, most private care functions could

Utilitarian Chinese familism

149

only be tampered with at great cost. These had to do with the biological requirements of individuals and demands for domestic services which were not available through market purchase or bureaucratic allocation. Such needs included the care of children, the sick, the disabled, the elderly and the sharing of housework. The use of alternatives would require massive state input to subsidize social consumption and provide substitute care. More important still, the effects of transferral could weaken the basis of the family and destabilize society. In the foreseeable future the state reckoned that the family’s place was irreplaceable. Economic considerations apart, many old ethics were deemed worthy of preservation in their own right. Mao pinpointed the importance of summing up the pros and cons of tradition, In the process of sorting out the development of our past civilization, the dregs of feudalism must be discarded but its democratic essence retained. Only then can we lay the basis of a new national culture and raise our national self-esteem. (Selected Works [1961] 1968, 2:668, Pan 1986:214) In the process of appraisal, the following traditional values and practices were positively sanctioned: fidelity of women (zhong zhen); the idea of respect between marriage partners (xiang jing ru bin); devotion to family duties, especially in caring for the old and the young (zun lao ai you); and brotherly love (xiong you di gong) (Pan 1986:215–18, Women of China 1987:142–5, Yue 1989b: 172–206). In particular, the stress on family obligation was thought to contribute to social stability (Pan 1986:220); reciprocal relations ‘help to strengthen the economic ties among family members, form close bonds in the family, and ensure that the young and old are all cared for’ (Women of China 1987:142–3). Notwithstanding the above, other aspects of traditional familism were condemned. These included patriarchal authority, exploitation of women, polygamy, arranged marriages, oppression of the young, ancestor worship, lavish weddings and funerals (Yang 1959). Above all, selfish devotion to the interests of the ‘small family’ as against the those of the ‘big family’ (the collective and the state) was the most repugnant (Pan 1986:219, Li Dun 1991). Permitting its survival would obstruct the socialist revolution and undermine the authority of the state.

THE LEGAL POSITION ON MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY The concrete outcome of dialectical analysis was the 1950 Marriage Law. It had the social goals of preserving the sanctity of marriage, protecting the rights of marriage partners and abolishing malpractices such as concubinage, ‘buy and sell’ marriages and exploitation of women. Unions based on love and free choice on a monogamous basis are the only acceptable form of matrimony. The right to divorce is also upheld. Furthermore, the principle of mutual support among family members is prescribed as a duty. Spouses are bound in duty to love, respect and look after each other (Article 14). Parents have the duty to rear and educate their children; at the same time, children are obliged to support and assist their parents (Article 15). The ultimate intention of the law is to lay the


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foundation for modern socialist marriage and family relations (Goode 1970). In the new socialist family, relationships between spouses, parents and siblings should be one of equality, mutual respect and sharing of common ideals (Pan 1986:222–3). To promote the acceptance of the law, a great deal of effort was put into propaganda, campaigns and adjudication (Goode 1970). One measure of ‘success’ was the dramatic increase of divorce. In 1950, 186,167 divorce cases were handled by the courts. In 1951 the number shot up to 409,000, rising to 1,170,000 in 1953 (Platte 1988). Within the first three years of implementation, nearly two million divorces were granted (Davis and Harrell 1993:5, Beijing Review 12 September 1983). Indeed this surge was so alarming that the law became known as the divorce law and the authorities had to suspend its propaganda to allay the fears of the masses (Meijer 1971:114). Still, despite the legal provision, divorces are hard to obtain in China. The Marriage Law mandates mediation before divorce is granted (Article 25). Hence families, work units and neighbourhoods are bent on effecting reconciliation through civil mediation (China’s Civil Mediation System 1988, Sun et al. 1988). As a result, the divorce rate in China is low. In 1979, crude divorce rates were 0.61 for Singapore, 1.17 in Japan, 3.61 for the USSR and 5.25 for the USA. For China, it was 0.21, making it one of the lowest in the world (United Nations Demographic Yearbook 1983:517–19). In 1981 a new Marriage Law was put into effect. This upheld the same principles regarding freedom of marriage, right to divorce, protection of rights of family members, and mutual assistance embodied in the early legislation. On family obligation, the responsibility now extends to grand-parents and grandchildren (Article 22). In addition, two important revisions are incorporated—raising the minimum age of marriage from 20 to 22 for men and from 18 to 20 for women, and relaxing the grounds for divorce. The latter permits marriage dissolution when one party can prove complete alienation of mutual affection, which makes the approval for divorce easier than before. Not surprisingly, its promulgation led to another surge of divorce (Platte 1988). Besides the above, other laws also contain clauses on family responsibility. For instance, Article 49 of the 1982 Constitution sets out the general rights and duties of marriage partners and family members. The Inheritance Law of 1985 requires the setting aside of a share of the estate for the maintenance of dependants who cannot work and have no income (Women of China 1987:149, Palmer 1988). To punish non-observance, the Criminal Code of 1979 provides for a maximum prison sentence of five years for offences considered especially serious (Clause 183). Indeed such legislative insistence is ironic in a country well-known for its tradition of filial piety (Chow 1991). The only acceptable explanations were official anxiety and common non-observance of the cultural ideal, as will be discussed below.

STATE POLICIES AND THE FAMILY BEFORE THE REFORMS Policies on rural production, distribution and social services In the domain of production and distribution, a number of measures provide a framework of support and equal opportunities to Chinese citizens. In the land reform in 1950, land


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was seized from landlords and rich peasants and distributed to poor peasants. A key part of the process was the struggle against the exploiting classes, which, in the context of rural areas, often meant the denouncing of kin and even immediate family. A common practice at the time was having children of landlords ‘draw a clear line’ between themselves and their parents. Likewise, the properties of lineages were confiscated. In doing so, the corporate basis of extended families, potential rivals to state power, was removed (Davis and Harrell 1993:5). Nevertheless, the major achievement has been the abolition of landlessness, which is a common cause of rural poverty in developing countries (Hussain 1989). So, despite some excesses, the land reform gained the support of peasants who eagerly welcomed the acquisition of land to feed their families. The joy of private land ownership was shortlived. Starting from 1957, the communization drive forced peasants to relinquish their plots and farm property to join communes. In this process of mobilizational collectivism (Selden 1993), rural families lost their status as independent producers. In return, they were guaranteed work as members of communes and given the right to the collective produce, hence the basis for subsistence. Distribution was to be based on labour input, measured by work points. However, as up to 70 per cent of the grain was distributed on a per capita basis, households not earning enough for their basic requirements could borrow from the production team (Croll 1987). This made for an egalitarian distribution of the agricultural produce. If the collective produced enough, a more or less equal share would be guaranteed to its members. More important for family unity was the practice of payment by household. With grain and cash turned over to its household head, patriarchal authority was reinforced (Stacey 1983). Needless to say, it also reaffirmed the family as a unit of consumption (Fei 1983). Another government policy likewise abetted the discharge of family functions. This was the household registration policy enforced since 1958. Designed to prevent rural migration into city areas, this policy virtually stamped out residential mobility, unless at the behest of the state (Parish and Whyte 1978, Christiansen 1990, Wong 1994b). Meanwhile, peasant elders, orphans and the disabled who had no families and had lost the ability to work were to be relieved by the collective. And for 20 years, the commune system provided a collective canopy to succour China’s rural inhabitants. Although rural policies were pro-family on the whole, attacks on the family occurred not infrequently. During the Great Leap Forward (1958–60), familism was assailed in the feverish attempt to transform rural society into a communist one. Thus private family plots, rural markets and family sideline activities, which provided important supplements to family income, were banned, and continued for most of the period under collective agriculture (Selden 1993). Such policies prevented peasants from augmenting their meagre income from collective distribution, as were the decrees for compulsory procurement and distribution of grain which locked prices at low state prices to feed city dwellers. The Leap craze also envisioned instant socialization of family life. Almost overnight, nurseries, old people’s homes and canteens sprang up to take over domestic functions and release dormant labour (mostly women and old people) for production. Utopia did not last long. In the wake of economic collapse, which came less than a year later, these structures disappeared as rapidly as they came. To revive production, the state reluctantly conceded to tolerate a greater scope for private economic pursuits, which


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actually delivered higher farm output (Dixon 1981) and restored peasant morale. However, attack on the family was to make another appearance during the Cultural Revolution. Particularly in its early years, a frenzy of anti-traditionalism and class struggle, including assaults on feudalistic familism, seized the peasantry. Fortunately, this wave subsided after a while. For most of the years under collective agriculture, family stability has been the experience of peasant society. Urban production, distribution and social security In the early years of the regime, private industry and family enterprises were permitted in order to revive the urban economy. However, by the mid-1950s, most big industries were nationalized and organized into state-owned enterprises. Later on, smaller-scale commercial, service and craft activities, many operated by families, were transformed into collective units (Lockett 1988). Henceforth, the urban population became dependent on the state for job allocation. They were also dependent on the state for all manner of goods and amenities after the abolition of markets. In the case of housing, the building of new housing became the responsibility of municipal housing bureaux and individual enterprises while allocation of flats depended on bureaucratic decisions rather than ability to pay. Likewise, grain and many daily necessities like sugar, cooking oil, cloth and the like were rationed. This fact transformed urban households into supplicants to a socialist state (Davis 1993). Most important to urban welfare is the universal employment policy. People who were capable of work were given jobs in either the state or collective sector. Once employed, workers enjoyed tenure for life. More importantly work units were to take complete care of their employees and their dependants. Even though cash wages were low, work unit welfare services in the form of company housing, health care, canteens and the like more than compensated. Furthermore, the system of labour insurance offered comprehensive protection against the vicissitudes of life—sickness, maternity, disability, death and retirement. Although entitlements to occupational welfare varied among enterprises, most of the urban population enjoyed social security cover either as employees or as family dependants (Davis 1988, 1989). For instance, housing is allocated on a family basis. It can be retained upon retirement and ‘inherited’ by a designated person, usually a child of the employee when the latter dies. Another benefit is public health insurance which covers 50 per cent of the treatment costs for family members. Indeed, work units and their workforce become so interdependent that they form sociological communities (Walder 1986, Lu 1989). While this theme will be pursued further in Chapter 9, suffice it to say now that urban families enjoy an income at least twice that of peasant households and a standard of living immensely superior. Welfare benefits are even better for families with members working in state enterprises, party and government offices. Needless to say, high official families and the nomenclatura have access to special provisions and services, such as elite schools, clinics and hospitals. Seen in this light, the oft-trumpeted claim of the superiority of the socialist system has a grain of truth. Ironically, pampered urbanites make up no more than 25 per cent of China’s population. Work units could intervene directly into private decisions of their employees. The danwei could help an employee find a spouse, issue a letter of introduction for the


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purpose of marriage registration, determine the number and timing of births, find a nursery, school place or job for an employee’s children, grant a family visit allowance, manoeuvre to secure the transfer of a spouse working in another city, make grants or loans to hard-up staff, assist with wedding and funeral arrangements, arrange bulk purchases for staff, elect model families and mediate in family disputes (Whyte and Parish 1984, Walder 1986, Li Dun 1991). These wide powers, carried out on behalf of the state, make urban work units the administrative parents of workers and their families. Similar to the rural scenario, urban living in China was characterized by restricted mobility, thanks again to the stringent household registration system. More importantly, the severe shortage of housing, a result of the neglect of urban infrastructure, has the effect of postponing new household formation (Fei 1983, Yang 1988, Ikels 1990b). It is common for workers to wait for many years before they are allocated their own apartments. Many young married couples are forced to live with their parents, mostly the husband’s family, as was consistent with the custom of patrilocalism. Such forced sharing might have to continue for many years. At the same time, because all women continue to work after marriage and motherhood, dual-career families are the norm. This has obvious implications for child care, especially before the child is old enough to go to a nursery. In this situation, grandparents become natural minders. Shared living arrangements and the need for child care reinforces intergenerational dependence (Ikels 1993).

FAMILY FUNCTIONING IN THE PRE-REFORM DECADES In the West, decline in family size and increasing nucleation has been associated with the weakening of family functions through the diminution of internal resources to meet needs and deal with contingencies (Titmuss 1968). It is difficult to say the same about family transformations in China. First of all, the average household size has shown no dramatic decline in the first 30 years of communist rule. In the first three national censuses, the average number of persons per household had been 4.3 (1953), 4.29 (1964) and 4.43 (1983). Only in urban areas had household size decreased appreciably—from 4.66 in 1953 to 4.11 in 1964 and 3.95 in 1982—while rural household sizes had even increased—from 4.26 in 1953 to 4.35 in 1964 and 4.57 in 1982 (Ma 1986, Zhongguo Shehui Tongji Ziliao 1987:30, China Daily 31 October 1990). Second, despite the trend for more nuclear families and fewer multi-generation and joint households, it is dangerous to infer a dilution of reciprocity. Most elderly persons continued to live with their married children (Liu and Xue 1987:8, Yuan 1988b, Gao and Liu 1988). Even without co-residence, grown-up children made financial contribution to parents, visited frequently and helped out with chores (Pan 1986:51). Mutual help occurred in the reverse direction as well. The older generation were just as likely to assist with housework, child care and chip in to weddings and major purchases (Yuan 1988a and 1988b, Pan 1990, Ikels 1993). That this was possible was mainly due to family savings and the higher wages of older workers, where, in urban areas, pay was linked to seniority (Davis-Friedmann 1983, Davis 1988). In addition, as said before, the shortage of urban housing delayed household division. Finally, the lack of social security in rural areas, and the inadequate supply of pre-school and social welfare services made


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family care vital for the survival and happiness of individuals (Chen 1985). In the view of Davis-Friedmann, ‘overall, government policies supported stable households and parentchild obligations’ (Davis-Friedmann 1983:103).

WELFARE POLICY AND THE FAMILY Civil affairs aid is highly restrictive. For a long time, the ‘five guarantee’ scheme was practically the only welfare measure for the indigent in rural areas. Its launch in the mid1950s served the political end of persuading reluctant peasants to join advanced agricultural cooperatives (1956) and, later, communes (1958). Through this, the authorities sought to demonstrate that collective agriculture was just as effective as, if not better than, families in providing for old age and destitution (Davis-Friedmann 1978). Overtly, though, the scheme was designed to give help to childless elders, the disabled, and orphans who had no responsible kin and ability for self-support. Family status, or rather the lack of it, was the most decisive qualifying condition. According to local custom, lack of family care was usually interpreted as having no sons; a married daughter was regarded as a member of her husband’s family and thus not liable. Whatever the motive, because of the scheme’s stringency, few people benefited. Those who did suffered the stigma of charity. If the granting of wubao (the ‘five guarantees’) was contingent upon absence of family support, family status was pertinent in another sense. People facing hardship from natural disasters, sickness, insufficient labour power and other misfortunes were helped on a family or household rather than individual basis. Similarly, preferential treatment was given to dependants of serving soldiers and martyrs; poor households were known as kunnan hu, both relieved as one unit. In allocating work, rural cadres also gave needy households priority in having one member work in a commune or brigade enterprise, giving the family a chance to draw a regular income. Later still, recipients of development aid were designated as fupin hu (development aid recipient household). The relevance of family and household criteria made escape from domestic duty impossible. Overall, the state’s welfare policy in the countryside was premised on reliance on the masses and the collective. State aid was restricted to the poorest areas and natural disaster victims. People’s needs were first met within families and then within the collective. Lineage support was no longer possible. With the seizure of lineage property, communes had replaced the extended family group in supplementing resources of the family. In the cities, regular relief was reserved for ‘three-no targets’. Again, the same qualifications applied. Temporary grants were given to whole families. Likewise, CADrun institutions only admitted destitute people without responsible kin. Hence, the family was the first line of defence in facing hardships and risks. What was different from rural areas was that the work unit gave greater support to families, hence CAD rules specifically withheld state relief from people with work ties. To the extent that danwei resources were inadequate, neighbourhood services sprang into action. All these channels had to be exhausted before state aid could be considered. Although welfare systems in rural and urban areas were organized along different lines, they did have common structural features. They were both decentralized, with


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responsibility devolved to basic institutions of society. The systems also operated in a hierarchical fashion, with clearly defined orders of priority for each agency (Wong 1986). As long as the family was intact, outside intervention was deemed unnecessary. Ikels, writing on the care of disabled elderly in China, wryly observed, Institutionalization has not been an available alternative for the disabled elderly. While there are homes for the aged, they are by and large for the use of healthy older people who lack families, i.e. the childless elderly. There is an appealing symmetry here—the lack of institutions means family care and family care means no need for institutions. (Ikels 1990b) Thus utilitarian familism served as an alternative to public welfare. Then, because of nonsupply of social services, family solidarity became more vital and had to be maximized at all cost. The state is committed to build a ‘welfare system with Chinese characteristics founded on the fine tradition of mutual care by relatives, friends and neighbours’ (People’s Republic of China 1986a, Shehui Baozhang Bao 12 June 1986). This marriage of informal care and formal provisions is to be the hallmark of China’s distinct welfare landscape.

CHALLENGES ON THE FAMILY The 1980s has been a period of rapid social change. Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms drastically altered the structural framework of Chinese society. In the countryside, the demise of communes reinstated the family as a unit of production. This reorganization restored the production incentives and efficiency which were lacking in the system of compulsory labour. Diversification of the farm economy—in particular the promotion of sideline pursuits, and, most important of all, the phenomenal expansion of rural industrial enterprises—resulted in higher incomes and a better standard of living. For the peasantry as a whole, from 1978 to 1995, the annual per capita net income rose from 134 yuan to 1,578 yuan (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:301). The more enterprising became more capable providers. Among rich peasants, a standard of living approaching or even surpassing city levels has become possible. Nevertheless, the improvement in peasant income has not been uniform during the reform era. The early period has seen the most remarkable increases. From 1978 to 1984, income gains had been the most rapid, with annual increases averaging 15 per cent and with a fairly even spread among farm families (Lee 1984, Zhao and Griffin 1994). Agricultural incomes grew only modestly during the years 1985–8. In this period, peasant incomes increased no more than 5 per cent per year. In the three years of austerity after the Tiananmen Incident (1989–91), rural earnings rose a mere 2.1 per cent, at 0.7 per cent per year, while some 40 per cent of peasant households actually saw their incomes diminished. Many peasants were squeezed by heavy burdens—indiscriminate levies, fines and fees while grain prices fell rapidly behind farm inputs. Between 1986 and 1991, peasant burdens increased by 16.9 per cent every year (China Times Weekly 14–20 February 1993:70–2). Taxes were not the main culprit. According to state policy, formal


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taxation should not exceed 5 per cent of the previous year’s income. Rather, it was the levies and collective withholdings of various kinds, including education and welfare levies, sometimes running to over a hundred kinds, that inflicted the most severe hardships. Worse still, in many areas governments were unable to pay cash for grain. Instead farmers were issued with IOUs or white scrips (bai tiao). As far as white scrips were concerned 1992 was the worst year. In that year alone, some 60 billion yuan’s worth of scripts were issued (ibid.). Although most of these would be redeemed eventually, many farmers, especially those in predominantly grain-growing areas, went into debt. The desperate straits of the peasantry led to many incidents, including protests, demonstrations, attacks on government offices and even riots (Yan 1994, O’Brien and Li 1995, Li and O’Brien 1996). The government was of course concerned. However, despite repeated decrees from central and regional governments for the eradication of white scrips, and stern warnings to local areas not to neglect agriculture, it was not until after 1993 that the problem of IOUs was alleviated. Not so for the under-investment and neglect of agriculture. Peasants’ net incomes stagnated between 1989 and 1991 and increased to 4 per cent per year between 1991 and 1994 (China’s State Affairs Infofax 5 June 1996:1). Taken as a whole, rural income differentials in the reform period, except during the first phase of the reform, have widened substantially. For instance, between 1978 and 1993, the gini coefficient, which measures income dispersal among individuals (varying between 0, meaning absolute income equality, and 1, meaning absolute inequality) has increased. Among rural households it has risen from 0.227 to 0.330, while the income ratio between the highest and lowest 20 per cent of households rose from 2.7 to 6.5 (Chinese Sociological Association 1994). There has also been wider income inequality between the developed eastern region and the more backward inland provinces. For all peasants, it is now their fate to stand on their own in facing market risks and competition. The job of making ends meet is not easy for families with scant skills and resources and for communities in poor habitats. What made hardship less tolerable was the comparison with richer neighbours and the changed value towards material success. In the past, the experience of poverty was commonly shared; income differences within the production team and brigade were small even though geographical disparities could be substantial. After the launch of market reforms, poverty is no longer extolled as a virtue; instead getting rich is deemed glorious. General improvements in incomes and living standards notwithstanding, a significant proportion of the peasantry cannot achieve subsistence. In 1995, 65 million rural residents were still living in poverty (Hong Kong Economic Journal 20 March 1996, South China Morning Post 28 April 1996). For the vast majority of dependent elders, social support comes mainly from their families. The under-development of social security and welfare services makes them even more dependent on family resources. At the same time, the demise of collective health insurance and loss of barefoot doctors (paramedics with elementary training to treat simple illnesses and carry out preventive procedures) has meant that for most villages, health care is privatized in the main. Escalating costs have put treatments beyond the reach of many peasants, especially those with limited incomes (Henderson 1990, Philips 1993, China Times Weekly 28 November-4 December 1993:72–4). According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, a major illness is often the reason why some families revert to


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poverty after initially benefiting from development aid. Furthermore, urban migration disrupted family life in many villages. Since the mid1980s, migration from the countryside has been on the rise. By 1995, 129 million peasants had left the land to work in rural enterprises (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:388). Some 60–70 million of them actually work and live in cities although they still retain rural registration status, which thereby disqualifies them from urban welfare, like rights to job allocation, subsidized grain, housing, medical benefits and social security. Not surprisingly, the majority of rural migrants tend to be better educated young people. Between 1990 and 2000, another 100–200 million surplus rural labourers will be displaced from agriculture and will be looking for urban jobs. In the meantime, of course, the outward flows have helped underdeveloped rural areas. Sons and daughters now working in cities send in welcome receipts in the form of family remittances. When they return to settle, such invaluable assets like knowledge, skills, business connections, market information and capital will accompany them. However, from the point of view of family life, out-migration has negative implications. Not only does it disrupt family life, it also impairs the discharge of care functions, especially the tending of frail elderly, children and the disabled. Rural women who are left behind have to cope with heavy burdens, to work the land as well as to tend to their families without the support of husbands and grown up children. In remote villages, it is not uncommon to find the population composed mainly of children, women and old people—the ‘61–38–70 contingent’, so called after the festival dates of children and women and the age of seniority. The cost-benefit analysis of migration is rather hard to calculate. In comparison, changes in the urban institutional structure are less radical. Nevertheless, employment reforms produced new pressures for urban families. The more serious outcomes are rising unemployment, reduced occupational welfare and lack of social security coverage for larger groups of the urban population, e.g. employees of individual and private enterprises. The relaxation of price controls also produced inflation, an unfamiliar monster, which eroded urban incomes. Employees on fixed wages and those working in poor units were hardest hit. No doubt the gravest threat has come from unemployment. With the implementation of labour reforms in the mid-1980s, the iron rice bowl has cracked for most workers, and for some become dismantled altogether. Towards the end of the last decade, state-owned enterprises, which still employed three-quarters of urban labourers, have found it increasingly difficult to stay solvent. The result has been a trend of rising unemployment in the 1990s. In 1995, the unemployment rate in cities reached 2.9 per cent and affected 5.2 million workers (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:114). Besides, there was the bigger problem of the hidden unemployed. There are at least two sub-categories. The first group are workers who have little or no work to do because their enterprises have suspended production partially or completely. The second group are workers made redundant and put on reduced pay or no pay (xiagang renyuan). Both are counted as officially employed (Wong and Ngok 1997). At the end of 1995, more than 7–8 million of the SOE workforce had either no work or were inadequately engaged (Zhu 1996b). Because of the absolute dependency of employees on their enterprises, unemployment, in whatever forms, will impose suffering on the unemployed and their families. First, there will be income interruption or reduction. From what is known, many xia gang


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workers are placed on meagre living allowances between 40–60 per cent of their previous pay. In a survey conducted by the State Statistical Bureau among 150,000 urban residents in 1993, 12 million were estimated to be living in poverty, according to the standard of 1,130 yuan per head per year (Tou Zi Dao Bao 11 December 1994, Hong Kong Economic Journal 14 February 1996). In 1994, the total number of workers suffering financial difficulty was said to be 20 million (Shichang Jingji Bao 10 January 1995). According to Gongren Ribao (Workers’ Daily), the proportion of poor urban households (defined as households with an annual income of less than 5,000 yuan and assets of less than 3,000 yuan) was 8 per cent, while low-income households (with annual household income of 5,000–10,000 yuan and assets less than 9,000 yuan) amounted to 30 per cent (Gongren Ribao 14 February 1996, Hong Kong Economic Journal 15 February 1996). At the end of 1995 some 30 million urban workers and their dependants were living in poverty (Zhu 1996b). The pauperization of a sizeable segment of urban residents since the late 1980s was significant from a historical perspective. Previously, urban workers, especially those employed in the state sector, were one of the elites in Chinese society, enjoying high social status, wages and benefits. Increasing market competition undermined their privileges. Unlike before, poverty is no longer a primarily rural experience. Losing the pay cheque is not the only consequence of termination from employment. Many enterprises provide a wide range of benefits and services. Being laid off often means that these are withdrawn. Many financially strapped firms, even though still in operation, have problems paying out pensions and medical bills for their staff (Henderson 1990, Wong and Ngok 1997). Desperate workers resort to desperate actions. Press reports from the Mainland have cited many anecdotal accounts of work stoppages, demonstrations, attacks on management cadres, suicides and other acts of violence. Because of the sensitive nature of labour disputes in a supposed workers’ state, no comprehensive statistics have been released by the authorities. One indicator of deteriorating industrial relations is the number of cases brought before labour arbitration committees. In 1993, such cases numbered 12,358, 51.6 per cent more than in 1992, while the number of affected staff was 34,794, 99.8 per cent higher than in the previous year (Feng 1995). In 1994, the number of labour arbitration cases shot up to 19,098, involving 77,794 workers (China Statistical Yearbook 1995:684); in 1995, the numbers were 33,030 and 122,512 respectively (ibid. 1996:732). Curtailment of occupational benefits is another threat to the welfare of urban families. Many enterprises in financial difficulties are unable to pay out pensions and medical bills. At the same time, the rapidly rising costs of social security have meant that most firms have to exercise economy and stringency in containing their welfare expenditure. In health care, many enterprises have tightened eligibility for medical coverage, restricted the use of drugs and treatment procedures covered by health insurance, and demanded copayments from staff. Some firms dispense with claims altogether; instead workers are paid a flat allowance—say 5–15 yuan a month—to cover health costs (Henderson 1990, Philips 1993, Pearson 1995, Wong and Lee 1996). Likewise, the cost of housing, virtually free in the past, has increased. Under the guise of housing reform, which started in 1988 in the form of rent adjustments and encouragement for home purchase, urban families have to pay more for rent and maintenance although few earn enough to buy their own housing (Yun and Bai 1990, Lee 1993 and 1995).


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Since the mid-1950s, most urban workers have been working in either state or collective enterprises; private sector jobs have virtually disappeared. From the early 1980s, urbanites could choose to work on their own, find a job in private enterprises or start their own business. None of these outlets offer health care, pensions, housing and welfare amenities. Neither is there job tenure. What this means is that in the mid-1990s some 20–30 million urban workers live without occupational protection of any kind (Zhu 1995). Even contract workers presently employed in state and collective enterprises (61 million in 1995) (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:107) live under the shadow of job and welfare insecurity when their contracts expire. To make matters worse for both urban and rural families is the problem of inflation. Taking 1978 as the baseline, the overall retail price index increased from 100 to 356.1 in 1995. Nineteen eighty-five was the year that gave residents their first rude encounter with inflation. In that year, the urban retail prices climbed up to 111.9 over the previous year while retail prices for rural households went up to 107.6. In 1988 and 1989, the urban retail price index was 120.7 and 116.3 respectively, while the corresponding figures for rural residents were 117.5 and 119.3 (ibid. 1996:255). In most economies, inflation on this scale is regarded as very serious indeed. To a people long used to stable prices and whose cash incomes are still very low, such price hikes are almost unbearable. Indeed, such shocks have jolted people’s confidence in the reform and their ability for survival. It is commonly acknowledged that popular anger with high inflation, uneven income distribution, and official corruption were important contributory factors to the mass rallies and defiance of the state in 1989 (A.Chan 1991). In the next three years, a halt to price reform and a squeeze on credits brought down inflation, only for it to reappear in 1993. In 1993, 1994 and 1995, the urban retail price index went up to 116.1, 125.0 and 116.8 over the previous year; in the countryside, the relevant figures were 113.7, 123.4 and 117.5 (ibid.). Such levels again brought the economy close to the brink of danger and again prompted another round of austerity. One of the aims of macro-economic adjustment was to contain price increases to within 15 per cent in 1995, which, according to government sources, was successful (at 14.8 per cent) (Renmin Ribao 6 January 1996). However, judging from the ‘stop-go, high-low’ pattern of price levels in the last decade, depressive measures may only have temporary effects. To keep credit tight on a sustained basis would hamper economic growth and push even more enterprises into bankruptcy. The latest survey, conducted in 1995 by the State Economic System Reform Commission among 2,000 people in more than forty cities, confirms inflation as the number one concern for Chinese citizens, followed by corruption and social disorder. Residents were likewise worried about the breakdown of welfare and social security programmes (South China Morning Post 11 February 1996). Besides having to contend with economic and social forces unleashed by the reforms, the Chinese family is facing accelerating changes in its internal structure. Two demographic trends are of particular relevance. The laissez-faire attitude of the state on fertility experienced a fundamental shift under the new reform leadership. Despite having embarked on efforts to promote family planning in the mid-1970s, the government announced the ambitious one-child population policy in 1979, which is a highly intrusive and coercive measure in the life of Chinese families (Davis and Harrell 1993:13–16). The impetus to this draconian policy


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was the four modernizations. In order to meet its projected economic targets, the state felt compelled to control the size of the population within 1.2 billion by 2000 (Renmin Ribao 27 January 1979). The authorities then went on to enforce the policy with so much rigour that charges of arbitrariness, cruelty and violation of human rights have often been voiced overseas. Within the country, the policy also met with a lot of popular resistance (Mosher 1982, Wong 1984, Croll 1987, Davin 1988). Overall, the results of the birth planning policy have been quite successful. The birth rate declined from 18.25 per thousand in 1978 to 17.12 per thousand in 1995 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:69). In the cities, most families, who are heavily dependent on the state and their employing unit, observe the one child rule. The number of single children cannot be easily determined. A useful proxy is the number of couples holding a ‘Single Child Certificate’. At the end of 1989, 35.5 million such certificates were issued—13.9 million in city areas and 21.6 million in the countryside. In 1992, 42.2 million certificates were issued (Gui 1994). In the early 1990s, China had an estimated 50 million only children (Ming Pao 6 January 1992). In the countryside, enforcement has proved more tricky. The return to a family-based economy means that children now have a high economic value, so the incentive to have more children comes into direct conflict with the birth control policy. Realizing the impossibility of restricting rural families to having only one child, the government relaxed the quota to two in most provinces from the mid-1980s onwards (Greenhalgh 1993). The implications for applying the brakes so sharply are multifarious. Some of the consequences have been female infanticides and uneven sex ratios, precipitated by longstanding cultural preferences for male children. According to a 1.04 per cent sample survey in 1995, among the 15–19 age group, the group born before the one-child policy came into effect, the average sex ratio was 106.08, which was consistent with the normal sex distribution at birth. However, the later-born cohorts were marked by a high percentage of males over females. Thus, the average sex ratio for the 10–14 age group was 107.93; while the sex ratios for the 5–9 and 0–4 age groups were respectively 110.19 and 118.38 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:72). Clearly, the sex ratios have become more and more imbalanced over time. Nevertheless, it might be dangerous to infer that all the missing girls have been aborted or killed. While the authorities did admit to incidences of female infanticide, many girl babies probably survived. Demographers argued that the disappearance of female children from official statistics may be due to deliberate under-reporting so that families can escape punishment. It may also be caused by local cadres not doing their registration work properly or consciously omitting to register such births to avoid censure from senior cadres. The act of bearing a child of the wrong sex has also been associated with abuse of women by their spouse and in-laws. One coping strategy was to abandon the unwanted baby to give the family another chance of bearing a son. In recent years, the number of children abandoned has been on the rise. From what is known, most of these were girls or children suffering from a handicap (Guangdong Minzheng 1991, 4:18–19, Johnson 1993). Admission into care does not mean that such babies receive good treatment. In the early 1990s, various Western journalists reported practices of abuse and deliberate neglect in children’s homes (see Chapter 6). What is more worrying is the reason leading to acts of abandonment in a society which is famed culturally for its love of children.


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Such acts must be acts of despair and attest to the painful tug-of-war between state and Chinese families over the latter’s fertility. On another level, the shortage of resources in children’s homes is also cause for concern. Residential staff usually have no special training. Therapeutic and rehabilitation amenities are often distinguished by their absence. Apart from model facilities run by the state, most homes offer little more than custodial care. In the cities where the one-child norm prevails, a four-two-one family pattern (four grandparents, two parents, one child) has begun to form. Over the long haul, the new family structure will alter family relationships. Such statuses as brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts may disappear if every new-born is a single child. There will also be adverse effects on the dependency ratio since a smaller number of adults will be available to take care of their parents and maybe two sets of grandparents. In the meantime, government and society fret over the education and socialization of only children. Because of over-protection and indulgence from doting adults, there is deep worry that many single children will grow into spoiled brats—unlikely heirs to the socialist revolution. The other factor resulted from population ageing, a universal occurrence. In 1964 the percentage of citizens 65 and older was only 3.6 per cent. By 1987 it had risen to 5.5 per cent (Zhongguo Minzheng May 1989:33). The 1990 census puts this group at 5.59 per cent, a gain of 0.67 per cent from the 1982 census (China Statistics 1991, issue no. 7). If the age of seniority is lowered to 60, a more commonly used age threshold in China, the elderly population would be 8.59 per cent in 1990, an increase of 0.96 per cent over eight years (ibid.). At the end of 1995, senior citizens (60 and over) numbered 117 million, making up nearly 10 per cent of the the populace. China’s aged population has grown more rapidly than elsewhere. The China Research Centre on Ageing estimates that it will take China only 20 years to complete the transition from an adult to an aged population structure, whereas such a demographic change took from 50–100 years in the case of industrialized countries (China Research Centre on Ageing 1994). Since the last census, the elderly population has grown by an average of 3.37 per cent per year (Hong Kong Economic Journal 5 April 1995). The greying revolution will pick up more rapidly in the next century. According to estimates by the United Nations, China will have 288.9 million elders (60 and above) in 2025 (Yanjiu Ziliao 1991 no. 267). In another study by Chinese scholars, it is projected that the age group 60 and above will constitute 9.8 per cent of the total population in 2000, 11.8 per cent in 2010, 15.6 per cent in 2020, 21.9 per cent in 2030, 25.1 per cent in 2040 and 27.4 per cent in 2050. Taking the higher benchmark of 65, the projection is 6.7 per cent in 2000, 7.7 per cent in 2010, 10.9 per cent in 2020, 14.6 per cent in 2030, 19.6 per cent in 2040 and 20.4 per cent in 2050 (Wu and Du 1992). What’s more, the increase of the very old, those aged 75 and above, will rise even faster. In 2030, this group will make up 5.2 per cent of the population, and in 2050, 10.1 per cent (ibid.). According to the projection based on the fourth census, the age dependency ratio (the size of the age group 60 and above relative to those aged between 15 to 59) will deteriorate. In 1982, it was 12.99. It will increase to 15.97 by 2000 and to 37.90 in 2040 (China Research Centre on Ageing 1994). The financial implications of this trend, especially the rising costs of health care and pensions, are only too obvious.


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From information available, the onslaught of structural transformation, state family policies and demographic change has produced strains in the family. In recent years, a number of family problems have been reported. One concern was marriage breakdown. In the last fifteen years, divorce cases have been rising steadily. A higher incidence of divorce followed on the heels of the 1980 Marriage Law. In 1980, permitted divorce cases were 340,998; in the subsequent year, the number shot up to 389,153 and rose again to 427,584 in 1982 (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:18). Pan Yunkang also found that since 1981, the number of divorces increased by 30 to 80 per cent in most areas and doubled in some places (Pan 1986). This pattern was similar to the experience after the release of the first Marriage Law. What differed was that divorce decrees did not come down after a few years but went on a continuous upswing all through the 1980s and into the mid-1990s (Xu 1991). By year-end 1995, divorce cases exceeded 1 million (1,055,196) (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:727). In the period between 1980 and 1995 the number rose nearly three times, while the divorce rate more than doubled from 0.7 to 1.8 per thousand (ibid.). Although still low by international standards, the trend aroused anxiety in a society that puts a premium on marital stability. Another problem related to illegal marriages. One expressed concern was cohabitation and unlawful unions—for example, under-age marriages, unions between close relatives, and bigamy (Ming Pao 20 June 1991, Zhongguo Minzheng April 1989:14, Leng 1990, Zhang 1993). In the late 1980s, people marrying before the legal minimum age averaged 15–20 per cent; in 1986 alone, this amounted to 6.1 million people. By 1988, women who married before age 20 accounted for 19.9 per cent of the wedding total, up 4.5 per cent from 1982 (PRC Yearbook 1989:395). The phenomenon has persisted. In the early 1990s, under-age marriages accounted for 20 per cent of all de facto unions (Zhang 1993). To civil society, such behaviour must have a rational basis. Among the reasons suggested are the increasing costs of weddings, avoidance of excessive fees of marriage registration, the desire to start a family early, to beat the family planning policy and so on (Leng 1990). On the other hand, the government has grounds for concern. Babies born from illegal marriages represented some 10 per cent of new births and 20 per cent of above-planned births—namely, babies born outside of the state birth quotas (Zhongguo Renkou Bao 14 July 1992). In 1985, these stood at 1 million; in 1988, 8 million (Zhongguo Minzheng October 1989:35, PRC Yearbook 1989:397, Ming Pao 20 June 1991). Such youngsters, dubbed ‘black children’, are potential victims of discrimination. Not legally registered, they do not qualify for subsidized rations, education, housing and job allocations. Before achieving independence, they will be the sole burden of their parents. In many immigrant enclaves in big Chinese cities, such as ‘Zhejiang Village’ in Beijing and San Yuan Lane in Guangzhou, these problems have already surfaced. Meanwhile, non-compliance with state policies also challenges the power of the party-state. Additional problems have been identified. One disconcerting problem was the reappearance of abduction and sale of women (Leng 1990, Ming Pao 20 June 1991, Time 11 November 1991, Zhang 1993). From what is known, while some women were sold into prostitution, most were bought by peasant men who had lost out in the marriage market, mostly low-income males from backward areas where local women were only too glad to flee through marriage into more prosperous areas (Lan 1991). In 1992, there were 40 million unmarried adults in China. In the countryside, the majority of singles


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were male. In the cities, gender is less important than age, with the generation of sentdown youths being most likely to have missed their chance of finding a partner during their exile in the villages. Likewise, social evils which were eradicated in the 1950s have made a comeback. These include prostitution, mercenary marriages, gambling, superstition and drug addiction (Leng 1990, Ming Pao 24 November 1990, Guangdong Minzheng 1990, 2:16–17, Beijing Review 12–18 August 1991:7, Yu and Li 1993), which all affected family stability and welfare. In interpreting the above reports, caution is needed. The information published has been anecdotal. What’s more, Chinese sources tend to be alarmist in reporting examples of ‘spiritual pollution’. While this undoubtedly reflects official anxiety, outsiders cannot readily gauge the size and severity of the social problems. Without more reliable data, it is rash to conclude that the Chinese family is breaking down or facing a crisis. Nevertheless, enough information has surfaced to suggest that Chinese familism is under great strain. Bearing in mind the heavy dependence on family care, any impairment in family functions exerts additional pressure on the formal welfare system.

CARE OF THE ELDERLY Of all the problems affecting the family, none is as worrying as the issue of old age support. Among the requirements of the elderly are income, daily care, emotional succour, health, housing and other support services. Various studies have identified the nuclear family as the predominant family pattern in both urban and rural areas, amounting to about 65–70 per cent, while stem families make up about 15–20 per cent (Gu 1988, Yuan 1988b). As far as the elderly are concerned, the majority still live with their families (Gui 1994). Shared living need not mean that the elderly receive good care. However, there is evidence that the majority of old people who live with kin are indeed more satisfied with their family relationships and daily life. At the same time, family ties and emotional attachments are not necessarily weakened by separate living arrangements. Most families, whether living together or separately, maintain close interaction, prompting Chinese sociologists to call this pattern ‘network family’ (wangluo jiating) (Pan 1990). Most studies on Chinese families have found that working children regularly give money to their parents and assist them when they are sick or need help with daily living. When an aged parent can no longer manage on his/her own, or becomes a widow(er), going to live with the son and his family, and to a lesser extent a married daughter, is quite common. The flow of help is far from one-way. Old people, particularly healthy elders and retired women, who retire at 55 in urban areas, give as much or even more help to their children (Pan 1990, Wang and Xia 1994). Children who are too young to go to a nursery are almost always looked after by grandparents. Elders are invaluable in such tasks as child care, cooking, and house-keeping. They also give money for children’s weddings, home purchase or house-building, as well as for the purchase of expensive items (Davis-Friedmann 1983, Ding 1987, Ikels 1990b). Ikels calls such reciprocity an intergenerational contract. In these days of market reform, when pensions are no longer secure, city elders have to be very careful in observing their side of the unwritten code to make sure that the young have no excuse to abandon them


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in their old age (Ikels 1993). A number of surveys confirm the importance of the family in social care. In 1987, a survey by the Population Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that in Chinese cities, spouses (34.7 per cent) and children (55.9 per cent) were the major carers of the elderly; in the villages, rural elders were more prone to depend on childen (87.6 per cent) than spouse (9.4 per cent) (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 1988). In another study, conducted by Gui Shixun in Shanghai among bed-ridden elderly in 1989, six out of seven relied on care by their family members (Gui 1992). A more comprehensive picture pertaining to income and health care among the Chinese elderly in the early 1990s was given by Ma Youcai, a well-known Chinese family sociologist (Ma 1992). On the question of income source, the leading sources were pensions (63.7 per cent), family contribution (16.5 per cent) and work income (14.6 per cent). The rank order was reversed in the villages. For rural elderly, earnings from labour was the major means of livelihood (50.7 per cent) while money from children came second (38.1 per cent). Only a tiny segment had a pension (4.7 per cent). On health care, some 73.3 per cent of city elders had full or partial insurance coverage; in the countryside, a mere 5.3 per cent were covered. The under-provision of social security and health coverage in the countryside is outstanding. In 1992, the China Research Centre on Ageing (CRCA) conducted a survey on the situation of the elderly. On the amount of income, the urban elderly had an average income of 2,053 yuan and the rural elderly had 832 yuan. As regards source, the survey found that for the urban elderly, the sources (in descending order) were personal income (56.4 per cent), contribution from the government (25.9 per cent), the family (17.6 per cent) and the community (0.1 per cent). In the countryside, income sources for the elderly were personal income (46.9 per cent), the family (41.6 per cent), the community (6.4 per cent), government contribution (4.9 per cent). Among groups, women in both urban and rural areas had less income than men. Average income for town and country also declined with increasing age, resulting in heavier reliance on the family (CRCA 1994). The most reliable, and the most recent, data on income sources of the elderly (age 60 and above) came from a 0.63 per thousand sample survey conducted by the government in October 1994. Among the sample (73,434), the major income sources were income from kin (57.1 per cent), income from work (24.8 per cent), retirement pension (15.8 per cent), and income from social insurance and relief (China Statistical Yearbook 1995:66– 7). Among elderly who had lost the ability for self-care, 88.9 per cent relied on kin support. From the above surveys, the elderly’s reliance on family support is striking. This is especially true for the rural elderly. In the cities, some 80 per cent of the urban workers enjoy social security protection. For them, work units and the state have expended ever greater amounts on such items. Indeed the burdens have become almost crippling, especially to money-strapped firms. Since 1978, labour insurance and related expenditures for retired and resigned personnel have risen from 1.73 billion yuan in 1978, to 38.26 billion yuan in 1989 and 154.18 billion yuan in 1995 (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:736), when pensioners swelled from 3.14 million to 22.01 million and then 30.94 million (ibid.: 737). However, the adequacy of pensions has been eroded. This is because pensions were linked to basic wage (60–75 per cent) and did not include


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bonuses that accounted for some 30 per cent of take-home pay. Workers who retired when wages were low, before the 1980s, experienced hardship despite getting price subsidies from their work unit and the state. However, among people without liable kin, in 1993 only 157,238 persons were receiving regular state relief while 529,568 elderly redundant workers obtained regular relief from the state (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1995:210). All would need to contend with high inflation, which further ate into the value of pensions. Even when money was no problem, longevity increased the odds of physical dependency. Prolonged care of frail elders was enough to create a family crisis in double-career families (Ikels 1990a). The rapid rise of the old-old group (75 and above) means that more families will be under strain to care for the infirm. Likewise there will be higher demands for residential and health services. In the countryside, the demise of communes has eroded collective provisions in the first years of the reform (Davis-Friedmann 1983). Very few rural elderly are eligible for the five guarantees. In the 1990s, less than 3 million actually received communal relief. As already pointed out, for the majority of peasant elders social security is practically non-existent. Since 1991, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has been active in promoting pension plans in rural areas and has made some progress. In 1995, 51 million peasants were covered by such schemes, even though only 269,000 elders have actually drawn a pension (Zhongguo Minzheng Tongji Nianjian 1996:217). From what is known, these are concentrated in more affluent areas around the coast and adjacent to big cities. Rural elders in the inner provinces rely entirely on their own labour and their families. Old age homes are important for elderly without kin and self-care ability. Nevertheless, provision is extremely meagre. In the reform years, the number of beds has increased substantially. However, by 1995 there were only 419,875 beds in rural homes and 369,680 beds in urban facilities (ibid.: 232). Together they catered for 602,656 elderly residents, comprising 285,943 cityfolks and 316,713 rural elders. Remembering that China’s senior citizens numbered 117 million or nearly 10 per cent of the population in 1995, the admission rate works out to about six per thousand. The rural situation is even grimmer. The lack of social security and shortage of welfare services put even greater pressure on peasant families struggling to make ends meet in a market economy. According to various issues of Zhongguo Laonian (Chinese Elderly Magazine), since the mid-1980s the number of civil cases involving refusal to support elderly parents has risen sharply. At the same time, more instances of elderly abuse have been recorded (ibid.). While isolated episodes may not be indicative of general trends, wide publicity reflects the concern of the state and society on the softening of family values. As the country’s welfare bureaucracy, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has to wrestle with the problem of age support. A number of strategies have been adopted. First, there have been persistent attempts to trumpet the virtue of honouring the aged. Two justifications were invoked. One was the appeal to the authority of tradition. The masses were reminded that caring for aged parents was the key essence of Chinese familism, a strict moral duty (Fei 1983, Cui 1989, Shehui Baozhang Bao 29 January 1988, Zhongguo Minzheng May 1988:7 and May 1989:34). The second justification was socialist: that old age support was a compensation to the proletariat who had devoted their working lifetime to building socialism. Honouring one’s parents was an individual’s contribution to helping society discharge its social obligation (Pan 1986:224).


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Another strategy was to enforce legal strictures on family care. The authority of the laws was constantly cited to impose support duties, not only on sons but also on married daughters. Furthermore, civil affairs cadres have taken the lead to encourage the signing of quasi-legal care contracts between aged peasants, their children and relatives (Zhongguo Minzheng October 1990:21, Ikels 1993). Other administrative innovations have been introduced, as detailed in Chapters 5 and 6. These ranged from strengthening community care, relaxing admission to institutions for needy persons with families and income, experiments with pension schemes and welfare service networks in rural areas, to encouraging remarriage of widows and widowers. To underline the responsibility of all sectors of society, the policy of welfare socialization came into being. In sum, all these measures have the goal of tackling the pragmatic problems of old age care. They are also intended to promote new concepts of morality. Nevertheless, by their very nature, official initiatives amounted to partial answers to very complex problems. The chance is slim that they can arrest the cause even if they can relieve the symptoms when the basic issue is family adaptation to social change. Within the civil affairs system, there were two schools of thought on the policy on old age security. One view was that family care should be the primary way of dealing with age support; all other bureaucratic measures were supplementary. As a result, everything possible must be done to shore up the family. The second view was more progressive; namely, that the weakening of family functions was inevitable under the influence of modernization and urbanization. Hence society should perfect the formation of a social security system (Zhongguo Minzheng May 1989:33). By and large, it was the first view that carried the day. In the Forum on Social Security organized by the MCA in 1988 (reported in Shehui Baozhang Bao 29 January 1988), Minister Cui Naifu summarized the consensus of participants as follows, Our country must emphasize the function of the family in building up our social security system. Family care is more voluntary and effective than care by any special agency. If family issues are handled well, this can alleviate pressures on society. If handled badly, societal burdens will be aggravated. (Cui 1989:128)

CONCLUSION In China, the family functions as a social support system that mediates between need and bureaucratic intervention. The state adheres to almost a blind faith in the omnipotence of the family in meeting the welfare needs of individual members. In the sphere of direct welfare and relief, the availability of family support disqualifies people from communal and state aid. Every effort has been made to preserve the tradition of family reciprocity. However, on closer examination, communist commitment to the family has been at best ambivalent and at worst exploitative (Chow 1991). Government policies are multidimensional. They include measures of direct attack, reform, legal prescription, propaganda, and glorification of cultural virtues as well as actual support. Overall, the attitude towards Chinese familism has been one of tolerance rather than whole-hearted


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celebration. Nevertheless, official desire to maintain family integrity has been unwavering. The state believes that is the clue to individual happiness; it also lessens the state’s welfare responsibility. In the above analysis, the most striking discovery is the intimate relationship between the family, government policies and the institutional framework. Decades of socialism have impinged on the way that needs are met within families and in society (Davis and Harrell 1993). The element of continuity is also important. The cultural legacy is instrumental in furnishing the social-psychological foundation of an approach to welfare based on family responsibility and localism. In the last decade and a half, it is apparent that the process of economic change, demographic evolution and state intervention has produced unsettling effects on the family. Even though the state still clings to a policy of relying on utilitarian familism as the core instrument of social care, its avowed aim of socializing welfare responsibilities does not offer the right remedy to problems encountered by the Chinese family. So far, the authorities have steadfastly equated personal welfare with family welfare. This may be correct in most situations: people are happier living in families where their need for love and security is met by a family group. Whether it is right to treat family interest as synonymous with individual interest is questionable. In societies undergoing modernization, the ascendancy of individualism has been the universal experience. As individuals demand more freedom for themselves as persons, they may relish the family bond but reject its bondage of mutual obligations. This may well be the shape of things to come for China. What will happen if individuals rebel against traditions and official strictures? If that happens, the family cannot be the expedient tool that it has been for the last forty years. It appears that the state is not yet ready to face up to this eventuality.

9 The collective canopy In market economies, a person’s work is the main determinant of income and life chances. Remuneration is tied to the marketability of one’s skills. The non-wage package among employees is also marked by inequality. It is in the statutory social services that treatment is supposedly equal, consistent and determined along need and citizenship criteria (Marshall 1950, Titmuss [1958] 1969). In the past, the potential role of employers as an instrument of social policy was neglected. Since the oil crisis in the mid-1970s, the bias of state welfarism has been recognized (Higgins 1986). The 1980s saw counter trends in the form of neo-conservatism and corporatism (Mishra 1990). Many realized that welfare provided in the work place, such as in Japan, was an integral part of the social wage and a genuine alternative to state services (Rose 1986, Esping-Andersen 1990). Nowadays, pluralist arrangements for welfare, contributed by providers such as the state, employers, local communities and kin, are accepted in advanced welfare states (Pinker 1991a). Under socialism, work-based distribution rather than market allocation determines one’s ultimate entitlement to welfare. In China, goods and services channelled through the unit of production—the collective—is of paramount importance. However, the role of human geography has been even more crucial. One’s place of birth, in either village or city, critically affects one’s life chances. In addition, one’s attachment to different types of enterprise brings differential rewards. Horizontal inequalities in welfare notwithstanding, within the collective unit distribution has been highly egalitarian. The all-embracing nature of the collective canopy also made minimal state welfare tolerable. Communal amenities likewise play a key role in buttressing the resources of families in meeting individual needs. In this chapter, the role of the collective in welfare will be analysed. It is argued that since welfare responsibilities are decentralized to the unit of production, a small state role in direct welfare matters becomes feasible. To begin with, I shall trace the etymology of the collective concept and clarify its meaning. Second, I shall examine its sociological significance. This is followed by a finer delineation of its welfare role. The conclusion is that as long as the collective framework remains intact. demands for state services are kept to the minimum. Conversely, the erosion of this premise requires compensatory provisions. The fourth part analyses the effects of the economic reforms. In the countryside, the demise of communes created a welfare crisis; in the cities, reforms in the enterprise structure altered a hitherto self-sufficient system. Such pressures led to repercussions in the civil affairs systems, whose responses are analysed and assessed. Finally, a conclusion on the close relationship between production, distribution and consumption is drawn with reference to the narrow approach of welfare.

The collective canopy

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ETYMOLOGY Karl Marx believed that private ownership was the source of oppression because of its monopolistic and exploitative nature. Nothing short of its replacement by public ownership could usher in a new social order. The collective is an economic organization based on socialist public ownership. In the history of Chinese socialism, the meaning of the term ‘collective’ experienced several twists and turns. Its exact content in rural and urban areas is not the same. Because of its nebulous nature, an examination of its etymology is essential. When the Chinese Communist Party began its struggle, Mao realized that the peasantry, rather than the urban proletariat, was the class that would sustain and ultimately accomplish China’s revolution. Party power was first consolidated in villages with the setting up of peasant ‘soviets’ or councils as a form of government in the Jiangxi period (1927–34). The seizure of power typically followed a number of steps. Upon entering a village, the communists’ first job would be the recruitment of activists and sympathizers. This was followed by the fanning of class hatred. Then the villagers would be led to denounce landlords and other bad elements. This would consolidate mass support for the party to confiscate the land that belonged to the latter and redistribute it among the poor peasants. Giving land to the people was not the ultimate goal. To promote more socialist production, the communists organized cooperatives in villages and hamlets from the early 1930s onwards. These structures, however, were short-lived. They collapsed when the soviets fell after their defeat by the Nationalists (Schurmann [1968] 1970). The communists perfected their techniques of rural organization during the Yanan period (1937–46). Using the natural village as the base, they built upon existing informal labour-sharing arrangements (among relatives and friends) to pool labour and animals together to form more permanent mutual aid groups. The cultivation and promotion of village leaders to become cadres also unified the masses because they were working among people they knew and trusted. In time, mutual aid teams became identified with units of the people’s militia. So, war, like work, was integrated into the pattern of rural life in the early form of collective organizations. After the revolution, the regime’s first task was to overturn existing economic relations. In the rural areas, land reform preceded attempts to socialize economic assets. Land was redistributed to land-deficient households. Private possession of land (along with draught animals and implements) lasted a few years only. In the period 1953–6, village policy turned to cooperativization. The drive started by the creation of mutual aid teams quickly progressed to agricultural producers cooperatives (APCs) and then to advanced APCs (Schurmann [1968] 1970, Vogel 1980, Shue 1980). The difference between the two forms of APCs is that in the elementary type land was amalgamated but still privately held, while in advanced APCs there was complete socialization of peasant property and joining of smaller APCs into larger units covering an entire village, akin to the Soviet kolkhoz (or collective farm) (Brugger and Reglar 1994). Some writers have used the word ‘cooperative’ to designate the first-stage APC and the word ‘collective’ to refer to the more advanced type. By the middle of 1957, 96 per cent of peasant households had joined the advanced APCs (Schurmann [1968] 1970:454).


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More radical transformation came in 1958 with the formation of people’s communes. Pleased with the success of the First Five Year Plan, Mao considered that the conditions for an instant leap into full communal ownership were ripe: As long as production materials such as forests, fruit trees, houses, sheep, small plots of land were still under private ownership, it was impossible to carry out unified planning and unified use, something which affected the development of production and construction. Private ownership of these production materials and small collectivity ownership [the small APCs] came into contradiction with productive forces which since the Great Leap Forward have demanded development. The setting up of a people’s commune was the best way of resolving these contradictions. (Renmin Ribao 13 January 1958) The life of people’s communes was to span over twenty years. From 1958 until 1983, rural Chinese society was organized in a three-tiered structure (commune-production brigade-production team). Except for brief spells, the production team, based in the natural village or hamlet, was the accounting unit. Under this system, property ownership was corporatized. Farm households lost their economic sovereignty. Instead individuals became members of collectives which provided for all their material requirements. Consumption as well as distribution was shared on a more or less egalitarian basis. In the event, people’s communes came to be regarded as ‘multifunctional units for production, consumption, residence, social services, and development entrepreneurship’ (Shue 1988:60). In the cities, socialist transformation or shehui zhuyi gaizao, the transfer of economic ownership from private to public hands, took place at about the same time as rural collectivization. The change agenda consisted of a number of stages in which the scale of ownership gradually expanded from smaller to larger cooperatives until they were owned by ‘all the people’—that is, by the state. Whyte and Parish (1984) summarize the process succinctly. Immediately after 1949, large firms controlled by the Nationalist government and its leading figures, foreignowned firms and vital enterprises like banks, utilities and trading companies, were taken into the state sector. Private capitalism was tolerated for a while. Then, starting in 1955, the campaign to socialize the urban economy began. First, the remaining capitalists were squeezed to relinquish control of their enterprises and turn the units into ‘joint stateprivate firms’, which were later nationalized. Then, during 1956–8, the authorities tried to organize all of the small pedlars, shopkeepers, repair personnel and handicraft workers into ‘collective enterprises’. Additionally, in the late 1950s, the collective sector was swollen by the incorporation of small-scale neighbourhood industries which mopped up previously unemployed persons (e.g. women) (Chen 1988, Lockett 1988). Before the decade ended, the transformation of the urban economy was complete. The distinction between state and collective-owned units was fuzzy. Both have public, as against private, ownership. Until the late 1970s, the state sector dominated the urban economy, employing some 75 per cent of the urban labour force. Both ownership and control rested with the state, which supplied all the plans, raw materials, capital,


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marketing and management input and coordinated their production under the state plan. Meanwhile, collectives were supposed to be responsible for their own profits and loss. In theory, ownership belonged to the people who worked in them. In practice, big collectives were run like state firms and only small units operated under a self-sufficient mode. Under Maoist thinking, the collective sector was regarded as inferior to the state economy and transitional in nature. Hence, before 1978, some collective units were merged and taken into the state system. With the abolition of private ownership, the state took up the responsibility for central planning, enterprise management and pricing. As a corollary, the onus of finding work for the urban population also passed to state labour bureaux. To resolve the issue of economic and social welfare, the state’s policy has been to graft it onto the work system. Distribution was linked to labour participation. Citizens earned their reward through work. Once engaged, workers enjoyed life tenure and took shelter under a collective umbrella. Their well-being became inseparable from their work unit. The process of tracing the evolution of rural and urban collective institutions unravels a string of lexicons—rural cooperatives, communes, urban state enterprises and collective units. While the origins and meanings of these terms differ slightly, they share three things in common. First, they are all units of economic production marked by advancing progress to public, as against private, ownership. Second, their members depend on them totally for their life needs. Third, the relationship between individuals and collectives on the one hand, and that between collectives and the state on the other, is marked by contradiction. Elaboration of the last point is found in two speeches by Mao. In his 1956 speech ‘On the Ten Major Relationships’, Mao stressed the importance of balancing the tripartite interests of the state, collective and individual producer. The relationship between the state on the one hand and factories and agricultural cooperatives on the other and the relationship between factories and agricultural cooperatives on the one hand and the producers on the other should both be handled well. To this end we should consider not just one side but all three, the state, the collective and the individual. (Selected Works 1977, V: 299) Furthermore, in ‘Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People’ (1957), Mao identified two basic contradictions affecting the peasantry in economic terms. One was between accumulation and consumption. The other was between the state and the cooperatives over the allocation of savings (ibid., Schurmann [1968] 1970:92). In the first area, the peasants sacrificed consumption so that industry could accumulate capital for development. The second contradiction arose from the fact that the state and the collective competed for savings—the state to re-invest the peasants’ surplus in industry and the cooperative to re-invest in domestic production. The second conflict gave rise to peasant grievance. Although Chinese farmers were not exploited to the same extent as their Soviet counterparts (Parish and Whyte 1978, Schurmann [1968] 1970), their lot was markedly inferior to that of urban residents (Selden 1993, Brugger and Reglar 1994). All along, they did not enjoy subsidized grain, municipal amenities and the generous perks


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provided by urban work units. They could not move to urban areas because of the household registration policy (Christiansen 1990, Siu 1990). Although both rural and urban folk had recourse to a collective canopy, the quality of the shade was decidedly unequal.

SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE COLLECTIVE The ubiquity of the collective is a distinct hallmark of Chinese socialist society. Mediating between individuals, the state and the wider society, collectives occupied the central ground as intermediate social organizations. No citizen was immune from the collective’s influence. Indeed, membership was the key to personal survival. The Chinese rural social structure was typified by what Shue (1988) called a’honeycomb’ pattern. The constituent parts, the people’s communes formed discrete, cell-like units. The three-layer system—teams, brigades and communes—coincided with the natural villages (cun), administrative villages (xiang) and marketing areas (zhen) long familiar to rural residents (Skinner 1971, Parish and Whyte 1978, Shue 1988, Brugger and Reglar 1994). Without interruption to existing residential, social and economic relationships, the solidarity of neighbourhoods was enhanced by a number of measures. First, rural cadres were predominently recruited from the local people, who were sensitive to local feelings and interests and were ready to defend them against outsiders (Madsen 1984, Shue 1988). Second, communes were explicitly conceived as highly selfcontained entities, in which economic life, social intercourse and political authority were fused in a single, comprehensive organization. Production, investment and distribution were internally organized. Furthermore, the Maoist principle of local self-reliance forbade dependency on the state and emulation of urban areas. Third, contacts with the outside world were discouraged. Communes were bounded by production quotas and other demands sent down from the county authorities, but had few horizontal dealings with other places. Furthermore, curtailment of occupational and residential mobility bounded the peasants firmly to their roots. In the event, villages became full communities (gemeinschaft) in the sociological sense. If communes were distinguished by self-containment, this was not true of urban collectives. In cities, the state was omnipotent; its control over all aspects of enterprise functioning was extreme. Walder, in his seminal work Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (1986) identifies ‘organized dependence’ and ‘institutional culture’ as the two institutional features of Chinese industry which were also typical of the organizational life of other urban work units. The first referred to the ways in which workers were dependent economically on their enterprises, politically on the party and management, and personally on supervisors. Regarding the second feature, the major manifestations were compliance secured by authority and incentives, patronclient relations between super-ior and subordinates (wherein derives the concept of neotraditionalism), and instrumental and exchange ties between colleagues. By dint of these characteristics, the work unit was more than an agent of production and distribution. It was also an arm of government and the administrative parent of its employees. Individuals were so completely subsumed under the danwei that their very identity


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derived from it. Other writers coined different terms to refer to the same phenomenon. Lu Feng (1989) labelled the urban collective system as a ‘work unit system’, (danwei zhidu). His analysis of the nature of the work unit was in harmony with Walder’s. He further pointed out the negative effects. For example, total subjugation of workers to the will of their danwei negated their individuality and freedom. Work units also became little kingdoms, acting against state interest by abusing and hoarding valuable assets. Hence, from the perspective of society, the fusion of economic, social and political functions was detrimental to a sensible division of labour and the pursuit of economic efficiency. A similar concept, ‘work unit socialism’ (danwei shehui zhuyi) was used by Womack (Womack 1991). A key feature of this was that within enterprises there were strong elements of voluntaristic and cooperative power relations, not just bald coercion of workers. However, in its external relations there was often a tension between state authority and the danwei. In summary, the above analyses converge on three points. First, collectives, whether rural or urban, have been the building blocks of the institutional structure. Until the reform, their universality meant that all Chinese citizens had been enveloped in them. Second, collectives are multi-purpose organizations with a wide mandate—not only do they complete economic tasks for the state, they are also instruments of administration and natural communities. Third, membership results in personal gains and costs. While personal autonomy is sacrificed, individuals derive substantial benefits from the association. As such, an element of exchange is involved when both care and control characterize the relationship (Wong 1986).

THE WELFARE ROLE OF COLLECTIVES For decades, collectives have been China’s welfare instrument par excellence. In the proletarian state, agricultural and industrial workers were the masters and owners of the means of production, rather than exploited employees. Naturally the satisfaction of their needs was regarded as a public duty. The deliberate fusion of work and welfare rests on the notion of the sanctity of labour: work is liberating and ennobling. It is also related to the socialist principle of fair distribution. Essentially merit-based, welfare is not a right from birth but something to be earned (Dixon 1981). In the period under Mao, distribution for the Chinese masses was basically egalitarian, income differentials were exceedingly small, consumption was protected and livelihood was secure. Communes and urban collectives have different reward structures. Under the commune system, the first collective contribution to welfare were benefits stemming from the pooling of risks. Unlike private cultivation, peasants were protected from such vicissitudes as bad weather, poor harvest, natural disasters and deprivation arising from differential abilities. When these occurred, the collective had the duty of maintaining the infrastructure, repairing any damage and relieving individual households. Second, communes with power to dispose of incomes could balance rewards according to effort without neglecting basic needs. In theory, distribution would be determined by the labour input of individuals measured by work points. Nevertheless, households not earning


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enough ‘work point grain’ were entitled to per capita allocations (‘basic grain’) which guaranteed subsistence for all producers (Parish and Whyte 1978, Croll 1987). Third, collective withholdings via the welfare fund (gong yi jin) and public accumulation fund (gong ji jin) paid for common requirements. The former covered entertainment, medical expenses, education fees, child care costs and aid to the destitute (Davis-Friedmann 1978); the latter provided reserves for public works and production needs (Parish and Whyte 1978). Naturally, there are pros and cons in such a system. On the negative side, it ‘stunted incentives, mis-allocated resources and held back personal incomes by putting household economic activities in a strait-jacket of collectivism’. Contrariwise, it gave each rural family a measure of material security via the common rice bowl (Hussain 1989). The early chapters have identified the communal welfare arrangements. These included the ‘five guarantees’, relief to hardship households, disaster relief and aid to veterans. Admittedly, access was carefully guarded and benefit levels miserly. Long-term relief was particularly hard to get. The ‘five guarantees’ were granted only to destitute persons without families and work ability after meticulous screening by neighbours. Indeed, the rules were so stringent and the stigma so strong that the scheme functioned more by way of preventing abuse than a means of eliminating household poverty (Davis-Friedmann 1978, Hussain 1989). Because services were funded and operated locally, the standards and scope of amenities also differed widely between areas. Nevertheless, the conditions giving rise to destitution in the countryside were dealt with, albeit at a subsistence level. This is not a mean feat for an agrarian society. Other social provisions financed from the agricultural surplus included health and education projects. Wide availability of primary and junior middle schools at brigade and commune levels improved the educational attainment of rural children. Even more impressive were achievements in health care. A delivery model making use of widely dispersed health stations, bare-foot doctors, and collective health insurance, wherein peasants paid a very small joining fee and nominal charges for treatment, won wide acclaim as a viable paradigm for health care for developing nations (World Bank 1985). Even though peasants made up 80 per cent of the population, China’s infant mortality, life expectancy, and morbidity patterns were more typical of a middle-income country than one with China’s income (Davis 1989). If rural residents ate from an iron rice bowl, the utensil of their urban peers must be made of stainless steel. Furthermore, this bowl was much bigger and better designed. It also held more enviable contents. The danwei system, prevalent only in Chinese cities, gave a degree of security unknown to employees in the most advanced welfare states. First, there was no danger of losing one’s job. Then, the danwei provided a full range of benefits in cash and in kind. These included social insurance or labour insurance, collective welfare amenities, and goods and subsidies allocated by the state (Dangdai 1987, Chow 1988). Labour insurance was set up under the Labour Insurance Regulations of 1951 and 1953. Initially confined to industrial workers in the state sector, coverage was extended to employees in tertiary occupations in 1956 (Dangdai 1987). Meanwhile, employees in state and party organizations were covered in a separate but comparable scheme through a number of regulations issued in 1950, 1952 and 1955. Regarding eligibility, the


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stipulated benefits are only mandatory for workers in state-owned enterprises and for civil servants. By and large, big collectives are able to implement all or most of the provisions on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, small collective units (for example, street enterprises) can only afford partial coverage (Whyte and Parish 1984, Lockett 1988, Davis 1988). Also relevant was employment status. Only tenured workers enjoyed the full range of labour insurance benefits. Discriminated against were seasonal workers, temporary workers and contract workers recruited from the countryside (Whyte and Parish 1984, Blecher 1984, Davis 1988, Solinger 1995). Such personnel received, and still receive, inferior pay, no pension and little by way of job security. There are three remarkable features about labour insurance for the urban workforce. First, the labour insurance system offered comprehensive benefits. The coverage included protection for sickness, invalidity, maternity, medical care, retirement and death. Second, benefit levels have been generous. For example, pensions (qualifying age of 60 for men and 55 for women) are between 60–75 per cent of basic wage (minimum 10 years’ service); workers’ dependants are eligible for 50 per cent of medical expenses. Third, they were non-contributory and were funded entirely by employers. These features make the scheme comparable to the most advanced social insurance systems in the world. Some scholars even consider labour insurance more generous than China can afford (Chow 1988, Zhao and Yang 1988). In 1995, labour insurance and welfare funds paid out by enterprises amounted to 236.1 billion yuan, equivalent to 29.2 per cent of total wages (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:733) (see Table 9.1). Out of this amount, some 65.3 per cent went to retired workers, with the pensions for 30.9 million retirees costing 154.2 billion yuan or 427 yuan per person per month (ibid.: 736–7) (see Table 9.2). The burden imposed by retired workers has worsened over the years. In 1978, there were only 3 million retirees. By the end of 1995, there were 31 million. As a corollary, the ratio of current employees to retirees has fallen sharply, from 30.3 to 4.8. The problem is especially serious for stateowned enterprises (SOEs). As for direct company-run services, these are discretionary provisions. Called ‘collective welfare facilities’ (jiti fuli zuoshi), the offerings can include dormitories, nurseries, canteens, clinics, libraries, bath houses, schools, shops, and so on. Amenities in kind can amount to some 30 to 50 per cent of the cash wage (Dangdai 1987, Howard 1991, Zhu 1995, Solinger 1995). What’s more, these perks, like labour insurance, are funded entirely by employers. However, large variations prevail between units. In general, large state enterprises and powerful state bureaux provide the best facilities. For people who work in them, the danwei is self-contained in welfare terms. Only workers in poor units need supplementation from neighbourhood facilities. Some statistics will illustrate the point. At the end of 1995, a State Economic and Trade Commission survey reported that one-third of all hospital beds were operated by enterprises. Additionally, firms ran some 18,000 primary and secondary schools which enrolled 6.1 million pupils and


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Table 9.1 Social insurance and welfare funds, 1978–95

Year

Total funds

State-owned enterprises

Urban collective enterprises

Other enterprises

As % of total wage bill

(100 m. yuan) 1978

78.1

69.1

9.0

–

13.7

1979 1980

107.3

94.9

12.4

–

16.6

136.4

119.3

17.1

–

17.7

1981

154.9

135.7

19.2

–

18.9

1982

180.5

157.0

23.5

–

20.5

1983

212.5

182.7

29.8

–

22.7

1984

257.7

213.4

43.4

0.9

22.7

1985

331.6

273.6

56.8

1.2

24.0

1986

420.1

343.9

74.1

2.1

25.3

1987

508.7

415.9

89.8

3.0

27.0

1988

653.1

537.6

110.8

4.7

28.2

1989

768.0

635.5

126.5

6.0

29.3

1990

937.9

777.3

152.9

7.7

31.8

1991

1,094.7

912.5

171.8

10.4

32.9

1992

1,309.5

1,095.8

198.8

14.9

33.2

1993

1,670.2

1,386.5

238.6

45.1

34.0

1994

1,958.1

1,646.2

248.1

63.8

29.4

1995

2,361.3

1,980.4

294.5

86.4

29.2



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Table 9.2 Social insurance and welfare funds for retired and resigned workers, 1978–95

Year

Retired and ‘Ratio’ resigned staff (10,000 persons)

Total funds

State-owned enterprises (yuan)

Urban collective enterprises

Other units

Per capita funds (yuan)

(100 m. yuan) 1978

314

30.3

17.3

16.3

1980

816

12.8

50.4

43.4

1985

1,637

7.5

149.8

119.2

1986

1,805

7.1

194.7

161.6

1987

1,968

6.7

238.4

1988

2,120

6.4

1989

2,201

1990

1.0

–

551

7.0

–

714

30.2

0.4

961

32.5

0.6

1,131

200.5

37.1

0.8

1,263

320.6

256.4

62.5

1.7

1,571

6.2

382.6

309.7

71.1

1.8

1,773

2,301

6.1

472.4

382.4

87.8

2.2

2,099

1991

2,433

6.0

562.0

459.7

99.4

2.9

2,342

1992

2,598

5.7

695.2

572.8

118.1

4.3

2,764

1993

2,780

5.4

913.7

752.8

144.9

16.0

3,399

1994

2,929

5.1 1,218.9

1,022.0

169.6

27.3

4,269

1995

3,094

4.8 1,541.8

1,296.2

208.1

37.5

5,120

Source: China Statistical Yearbook 1996:736–7. Notes: Resignation allowances are not broken down in official statistics; however, their share is small. In 1990, 1993, 1994 and 1995, resignation allowances were 350 million yuan, 570 million yuan, 860 million yuan and 1,070 million yuan respectively. ‘Ratio’ means the number of employed personnel to retired and resigned staff.

employed 600,000 teachers and staff (Ming Pao 6 December 1995). The megafirm Capital Steel Works epitomizes the almighty danwei. Employer to 140,000 workers, the company operates its own schools (primary to secondary), a university, hospitals, theatres, transport systems, supermarkets, food-processing facilities, its own bank and all manner of social amenities typically found in a small city. The only thing it does not run is a crematorium (field interview, January 1995)! Kailuan Mining Authorities in Tangshan City, which has a workforce of 130,000, is another ‘good’ employer. Each year, the company spends 100 million yuan on cradle-to-grave welfare services for its workers. These include 12 nurseries, more than ten hospitals, several clinics, a research centre, and 15 secondary schools and 31 primary schools which employ a total of 2,600 teachers. The money it spends on social welfare is disproportional to its financial ability, considering that Kailuan is barely breaking even (South China Morning Post 13 June


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1996). In addition, the work unit also distributes a host of cash subsidies and items to augment employee income and compensate for price hikes. The range of subsidies is mindboggling—grain, oil, meat, clothing, fuel, daily commuting, family visiting, haircuts, nutritious food items for different seasons, hardship allowances and so on. Most of these are state-supplied and work units act as the conduit. Some are largesse of the danwei to beat the strait-jacket of official wage rates. In the past, when commodity markets were underdeveloped, scarce commodities like consumer durables and tickets to sports and cultural events were distributed through work units. As the coveted items were not enough for all, the use of guanxi with management and peers was not uncommon (Walder 1986).The meaning of enterprise welfare extends beyond generosity to employees. Indeed, enterprise welfare served a number of useful functions. First, it increased the standard of living of urbanites whose nominal incomes were low. This put flesh on the government’s ‘low wage, high welfare’ (di gongzi gao fuli) policy. Second, by making work units responsible for the welfare of their employees, the state’s burden was alleviated. As a result, the state could concentrate on other tasks of nation-building like economic development and political work. Third, it reduced the scope for direct welfare relief. In terms of civil affairs aid, since work units have acted as the front-line help station, comparatively few needed to fall back on state charity. In fact civil affairs regulation expressly forbids relief to people belonging to work units (Fagui Xuanbian 1986:256). At a macro-level, work units helped the state to run society by taking on many social and administrative functions on its behalf. Workers were incorporated into the socialist state through their attachment to and control by their danwei (Chan 1993). On the other hand, the system had a number of unwelcome effects. One was that reliance on enterprise welfare obstructed the development of professional social services. Many collective programmes tended to make use of unskilled personnel; improvement in service standards became difficult (Lu 1989). Then, there were problems of waste and heavy expenditure, which ultimately had to be picked up by the state. More importantly, there were implications for equality. Variations in range and quality arose from ownership types, enterprise assets and employment status. An even wider cleavage divided the lot of peasants and workers. The more generous the benefits offered to urban workers, the greater the injustice for rural residents. This contradiction was a grave affront to socialist equity.

THE REFORM CHALLENGE The death of the commune system meant a drastic change in the rural institutional framework. Since 1984, collective cultivation has been replaced by family farming and private entrepreneurship. In most areas, the local collective, the village, has been stripped of common assets. In places where rural industries flourish, however, many enterprises remain in public ownership and the role of village and township governments are still important in fostering economic growth and management (Oi 1990). It is generally true that peasant households have to handle productive decisions, including market risks, on their own now that the rural economic system operates more on the rules of the market


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than on bureaucratic command. While agricultural decollectivization had resulted in more peasant autonomy, production incentives and increased incomes, it had negative effects as well. Riskin and others (Riskin 1987, Hinton 1991, Brugger and Reglar 1994) have highlightend some of these problems. First, since agricultural activities yielded less return than industry and commerce, a lot of land was taken out of cultivation for industrial projects and for an unprecedented housing boom. This gave rise to shortages of grain and other staples. Second, the decollectivized framework led to the failure to maintain the physical infrastructure, resulting in environmental damage. The increased frequency and severity of natural disasters could be attributed to the degradation of the environment and the depressed ability to protect it. Third, there was also predatory use of land by peasants who feared the household contracting system would not survive and were unwilling to put in long-term investment. Although the state subsequently assuaged such fears by lengthening land use contracts to 15 years for ordinary crops and longer for others, later allowing them to be inherited, the problem of inadequate input remains. The government is culpable also because of its attitude of rural neglect. In the 1990s, state investment in agriculture accounted for less than 5 per cent of all capital construction. Finally, land division itself resulted in the fragmentation of plots which aggravated problems in irrigation and mechanization. All these deficiencies combine to make agriculture more and more unattractive to cadres and peasants. In the less developed rural areas, pressure to leave the land and migrate to other places led to massive influxes to cities and towns. The new government structures in the countryside—township (zhen) governments that replaced communes and administrative village (xiang) governments that replaced production brigades—are less powerful than their forerunners. They are responsible for the administration of political and social affairs as well as oversight for the local economy. They control, however, fewer resources to fulfil their duties than their forebears which had an assured funding base out of the collective withholdings deducted before distribution to producers. Now, local revenues come from household collection and levies after producers collect their earnings from their primary distribution. As a corollary, there have been a number of social regressions. One was the collapse of collective health insurance schemes which had been highly effective in ensuring peasant access to primary health care (Taylor 1988, Davis 1989, Henderson 1990). In 1975, 84.5 per cent of the rural Chinese population were covered by collective health insurance. By 1985 this had fallen to 39.9 per cent, and by 1989 only 5 per cent of the rural population were covered (Gu et al. 1993, Pearson 1995). There has also been a considerable loss of doctors and other health workers. Furthermore, many cooperative brigade medical clinics were discontinued, being frequently leased to paramedics who then charged fees for their service (Riskin 1987). In the countryside as a whole, health care has been largely privatized. With access contingent on ability to pay, poor peasants are gravely disadvantaged. Of immediate concern to civil affairs was the question of responsibility for welfare. It is true that rural welfare was none too generous to begin with. Since the reforms began, vulnerable groups had been left to the mercy of fellow villagers who were now more conscious of the cost and benefits of facing up to their communal burden. For a few years, the ‘five guarantee’ scheme stood on the verge of collapse because peasants were


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reluctant or unable to pay welfare levies (Hussain 1989, Brugger and Reglar 1994). Civil affairs agencies had to work with local communities to find other sources of funding the programme. Ironically, one of the ‘solutions’ was to have villages play a bigger part in social care. During the last decade, local contributions have increased faster than state input. The key reason was diminution of state capacity. The policy to decentralize authority from the centre to the periphery weakened government powers in correcting regional imbalance and instances of social neglect. Now, the vast majority of the rural population have to look after their own welfare, including the support of the elderly, children and the dependants. Few peasants, apart from those who live in rich suburban areas, are covered by social security. The challenge is the more daunting because of the circumstances of rapid ageing, urban migration and weakening of family ties. Other experiments have been conducted. The foremost was development aid. Fupin was designed to alleviate rural poverty when different ability in risk-taking widened income inequalities among households. In general, the problem of rural poverty could be better tackled in the context of rising prosperity, for instance from higher incentives and greater efficiency in private cultivation as well as rural industrialization. Places earning more resources could better finance assistance schemes. However. in the case of fupin, limits were easily reached. Poor areas needed help most but could not get more aid from the state. More significantly, the programme involved little additional state input since it was resourced from the disaster relief allocations. In the event, diverting money from disaster relief meant that fewer victims of the elements could receive help. In addition, there was the neglect of infrastructure maintenance. A case in point was the catastrophic East China floods in 1991. There was good agreement that an underlying cause was the failure to maintain dykes, dams, irrigation projects and protect soil erosion, which increased peasant vulnerability to natural disasters (Wide Angle Magazine 16 August 1991, Contemporary Magazine 15 August 1991). Frequent disasters persisted all through the early 1990s, many of them more serious and causing more damage than past occurrences. Pilot attempts in building rural social welfare networks (namely, old age homes, employment schemes for the handicapped, veterans and poor households, credit unions, social security funds, and so on) were targeted at the survival needs of the indigent. Nevertheless most rest on the shaky financial base of a precarious local economy. Many of the more progressive projects like insurance and pension schemes are still ‘experimental’ (shidian) and unaffordable to poor communities. In a nutshell, rural social security is distinguished by its absence. The urban collective landscape has not changed as much. Nevertheless, the ground rules under which urban enterprises operated have been tampered with, with predictable consequences for workers. It is well-known that socialist enterprises are more than just business concerns. According to Solinger, they fulfil at least three customary objectives: full employment for residents with urban household registration, welfare security for workers (and their dependants), and output maximization (Solinger 1995). Under a command economy, the stability and welfare goals of enterprises were not seen to be in conflict with their economic objectives. This is because state, enterprises and labour were incorporated into a grand order of interdependence and unity. Functioning as appendages


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of the state, industrial enterprises did the state’s bidding. In return their requirements and the livelihood of their employees were guaranteed. Using the calculus of a market economy, however, functional fusion of socialist enterprises is problematic. First, they do not deliver in efficiency and profitability. Many factors lie behind their poor performance—outdated equipment, backward management, the soft budget constraint, unmotivated staff, insensitivity to market demands, inferior product quality and so on. Last but not least, their heavy social burden reduces their ability to compete with the savvy of the non-state sector. As labour insurance costs had been borne by each work unit individually after 1969, enterprises that have a surfeit of retired workers become vulnerable and severely disadvantaged vis-à-vis firms that have a younger workforce and lighter staff costs. Even in dispensing welfare, the success of firms is rather mixed. A key reason is their unprofitability, which means that some insolvent units cannot pay out wages, much less pensions, health and other social security benefits (Li 1996, Feng 1996,Wong and Ngok 1997). The plight of the state sector is indicative. As the backbone of the Chinese economy, its dominance before 1978 was absolute. In 1995, it accounted for less than half of industrial output even though it still earned some 60 per cent of state revenue. It was widely acknowledged that among China’s 100,000 or so SOEs, only one-third made a profit; another one-third registered losses, while the remaining segment had hidden deficits (Wide Angle Magazine 1993, 6:9, Ming Pao 11 December 1993). According to figures released by the State Economic Systems Reform Commission, in 1995, some 45 per cent of SOEs were in open deficit, with the debt to asset ratio among SOEs reaching 83 per cent. Their interlocking debts amounted to 700 billion yuan (Ming Pao 15 March 1996). The need to introduce enterprise reform was set out in the ‘Decision of the CPC Central Committee on China’s Economic Structure Reform’ (1984), which attributed the defects of the enterprise system to lack of incentive, inefficiency, waste, high costs of employee welfare, overstaffing and scant labour mobility. Therefore official policies concentrated on invigorating enterprises so that they could become independent, competitive and profitable. During the last 17 years, the course of enterprise reform can be divided into three stages. In the initial stage, between 1978 and 1984, the government began experiments to reform the rigid employment system. State intervention in the deployment of labour was reduced. Instead of relying solely on administrative procedures to find work for urbanites, three channels of job placement were adopted—introduction by labour bureaux, employment through workers’ voluntary organizations, and self-employment. Meanwhile, the most significant innovation took the form of the labour contract system. This was piloted in a few cities on an experimental basis in 1980 and was extended in 1983. In the second stage, from 1984–91, the focus of reform was on separating government functions from enterprise functions and proprietary rights from operational rights. Towards this end, contract responsibility systems of various kinds were adopted. In the labour arena, four reforms were announced in 1986. They were: Provisional Regulations on the Implementation of the Labour Contract System in SOEs, Provisional Regulations on the Hiring of Workers in SOEs, Provisional Regulations on the Dismissal of Workers


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and Staff for Work Violations in SOEs, and Provisional Regulations on Unemployment Insurance for Workers and Staff in SOEs. These decrees set out to encourage multiple systems of employment, permit dismissal of staff, introduce labour contracts for all new staff entering SOEs, permit dismissal of recalcitrant staff, and the inception of a system of unemployment insurance. Undoubtedly, the major breakthrough was the advent of work contracts, which spells the end of the iron rice bowl. In 1988, the State Insolvency Law (for Trial Implementation) became effective, although it was rarely put into use before the mid-1990s. In the third stage, from 1991, enterprise reforms were guided by attempts to transform the management mechanism of SOEs (1992) and the passing of the Company Law (1993), which seeks to push state firms to the market and turn them into modern corporations. To facilitate the deepening of enterprise reform, the urgency of a modern social security system is highlighted. In this regard, there are plans for enterprises to divest their social welfare functions such as pensions, housing, health care, funding of unemployment insurance, and schooling, which will be gradually separated from the commercial activities of SOEs. In particular, the state intends to improve and extend the unemployment insurance system. The repercussions on employees are obvious. First, workers are exposed to the danger of unemployment. Workers losing their jobs stand to lose the entire occupational package on which livelihood depends. Second, work units have attempted to cut welfare benefits, especially health costs. Third, employees in firms near bankruptcy are badly hit. Finally, the danwei system was becoming irrelevant to larger numbers of the urban population— people who worked for themselves, and private enterprises and those on temporary and piece work. Such people have no recourse to job protection and social security. To better align the urban workfare system to the needs of the market economy, a number of policies have been pursued. Of major strategic importance was reform in social security. On the eve of the economic reform, social security (previously labour insurance) suffered from a number of pronounced anomalies. First of all, it was borne entirely by enterprises, with no contribution from individual beneficiaries. Unitary resourcing meant that no one shared this burden, except when the danwei became destitute, in which case the state would come to its aid. Second, there was no risk-pooling mechanism. Since 1969, each firm had to absorb its pension, health and social security bills out of its operating income. This turned social security from a socialized scheme into a company scheme penalizing firms which were not profitable and supporting a large number of retirees. Third, social security protection was not universal. Entitlement was tied to employment status and ownership type. New labour groups that surfaced in the mixed economy after the reform (principally employees in the private sector, rural enterprises, joint ventures and foreign-owned forms) were excluded. Neither did they enjoy work tenure, housing and other welfare benefits prevalent in the state sector. The intention of social security reform is to produce a truly socialized system with a number of characteristics. First, there should be multiple funding sources so that enterprise assets will not be depleted. While enterprises will continue to bear the bulk of the outlay, employees should also contribute to their own protection. Meanwhile, contribution from the state will only be indirect and in the form of tax exemptions.


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Second, there should be central pooling of collection and distribution to even out the risks across corporate and individual subscribers. This is vital to laying the ground for market competition. Third, a modern social insurance system should compensate all major forms of employment risks including retirement, occupational injury, health and unemployment. Fourth, the system should, in the long run, be unified. This implies a centralized management structure. In the more distant future, entitlement would be made universal, correcting the present exclusions and equalizing social rights across the employed population. What have been the achievements so far? On building a comprehensive social insurance system, the four schemes have been established incrementally, beginning with pensions, then unemployment, and later work injury and health insurance. A small beginning was also made in the area of maternity insurance for female employees. On funding diversification, the principle of employee contribution has been applied to retirement and unemployment insurance, but not for work injury and health schemes, which remain the duty of employers. Workers now have to pay 2–3 per cent of their wages towards their retirement pension. In respect of unemployment insurance, introduced in 1986, employee subscription was initially 1 per cent of the basic wage, later changed to 0.6 per cent of actual income in 1993. This modification is sensible since the proportion of basic wage (biaojun gongzi) is now less than half of total take-home pay. Now the concept of work income (gongzuo shouru) is more relevant. For health care, the danwei used to pick up the full treatment cost of staff and half that of dependants. In the event of waste and sharply rising health costs, however, managers had no choice but to economize. Many danwei now designate where medical care can be had and limit the type of drugs and treatments that can be covered by insurance. Employee co-payment is routinely demanded in an effort to cut abuse and instil self-responsibility. In 1993, 80–90 per cent of insured workers had to make partial contributions, usually 20 per cent of treatment costs (Zhonggou Gaige Kaifong Shidian 1993:397). Some units have replaced reimbursements with a fixed health allowance every month, the amount varying with length of service. Workers can pocket the sum if no consultation is required but have to bear the excess costs incurred, except for major illnesses, in which case they can negotiate with their danwei on how the bill should be split. Steady progress has also been made on unifying funding and distribution of social insurance. By June 1993, 99 per cent of cities and counties had introduced centralized pension schemes (tuixiu feiyong tongchou) for the workers in SOEs, covering 78 million employees (95 per cent of those eligible) and 17.3 million retired workers (96 per cent of those eligible). Among COEs, the coverage was lower: 1,800 cities and counties (76 per cent) have built up pension pools. The total subscriptions, pensions awarded and accumulated surplus were 19.1 billion yuan, 16.9 billion yuan and 23.4 billion yuan respectively. Health insurance reform had proved more difficult. By mid-1993, only 1.5 million workers and 400,000 retirees were members of pooled health funds (yiliao feiyong shehui tongchou). Only 51 cities have set up pooled funds to pay for work injury (gongshang baoxian feiyong shehui tongchu) (Han 1994). At year-end 1994, 100 per cent of workers of SOEs and 80 per cent of COE staff have joined pooled pension schemes; 5 million were insured for major illnesses (Zhu 1995). By the end of 1995, pension pools had reserves of 35 billion yuan. Meanwhile 67.8 per cent of the urban workforce was


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covered by unemployment insurance, 14.2 per cent by work injury insurance, 7.5 per cent by maternity insurance and 4.75 million workers subscribed to schemes covering care costs for serious diseases (Chen Yueliang 1996). The responsibility for management remains fragmented. In most areas, separate agencies administer the health insurance, pensions, unemployment and work injury programmes. Unified administration is only found in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Guangdong and Hainan, which have established special social insurance bureaux to take charge of most types of insurance schemes. The above achievements notwithstanding, problems are far from over. First, with the exception of pension pools, most insurance schemes have not been socialized. Instituting funded systems on top of a pay-as-you-go mode may be useful in saving money for the longer term, as for instance, amassing surpluses to prepare for the old age dependency crisis expected to peak at 2025. However, as a consequence of high inflation and conservative investment policies (mainly deposits in banks and purchase of state bonds), social security funds are prone to erosion. In 1995, it is estimated that pension deposits (35 billion yuan from urban workers and 5 billion yuan from peasants) have lost 3 billion in value due to negative interest rates (Zhu 1996a). The risks resulting from depreciation and poor management make citizens wary about putting money in state schemes with a long maturity date. In addition, fund surpluses have been rather modest as has been the coverage of most types of insurance. Groups other than those working in SOEs and COEs can only join voluntary or commercial schemes. Even for those joining state plans, it is important to note that ‘coverage’ is not the same as ‘actual beneficiary’. The case of unemployment insurance is instructive. In 1994, 95 million SOE employees (95 per cent of the eligible) were said to be protected. Benefit recipients were, however, far fewer. In 1994, when there were 5 million registered unemployed, 1.87 million actually received unemployment benefits. In 1995, only 2 million persons out of a total of 7 million unemployed were relieved (Zhu 1996a). In addition, benefit levels, set at 50–75 per cent of basic pay in 1986 and revised to 120–150 per cent of the local social relief rate in 1993, are too low to provide for a decent living standard under high inflation. As will be discussed shortly, state social relief is not widely available. In some places, unemployment funds are already used up. Coupled with the fact that workers are still heavily dependent on danwei amenities, mass redundancies would create grave hardships and would be politically unacceptable. Given these difficulties, loss-making firms have to keep their unwanted workers, at great cost to the banking system (which absorbs the consequent bad debts) and the treasury. More importantly, the welfare expenditure of enterprises has not been reduced despite funding reforms. Health care costs, for instance, defy containment, economy drives notwithstanding. The main reason is inadequate funding of clinics and hospitals by the health authorities. Very often, state subsidies cover only 50–60 per cent of recurrent costs, and treatment units are asked to become self-sufficient through income generation. This pushes up the health bill, which danwei and insurers cannot control. Employers’ contributions to various types of social insurance are high. Work units typically contribute 15 to 20 per cent of wages to staff pensions, 11 to 14 per cent of wages to health insurance, 0.5 to 1.5 per cent of wages to work injury and 0.8 to 1 per cent of wages to unemployment insurance. The total contribution amounts to 28 to 36 per cent of


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the entire wage bill. This load is hefty for profitable units; for danwei in financial trouble, downright ruinous. Meanwhile, because pay levels are still low, employee contribution cannot go much higher. The government also faces financial constraints. Up to now, it is resisting calls for its direct contribution to social insurance. Finally, the lack of uniformity in protection has not been redressed. Entitlement is still tied to ownership type and employment status. The state is now determined to speed up the extension of pension coverage to employees in the non-state sector and ultimately achieve uniformity in system design, management, benefit standards, and fund usage (Zhongguo Shehui Baoxian 1996, 9:11, 26–7). This will not be easy given different starting points and the multiplicity of vested interests. In 1995/6, much as the government decided to push for a common approach in retirement protection, 11 industrial sectors (electricity, petroleum, water conservancy, transport, coal mining, post and telecommunications, civil aviation, construction, banking, coloured metals, railways) were hurrying to set up their own pension systems. Most of these are well-endowed agencies. Checking the centrifugal forces from the privileged groups is a grave test of state will. Of direct concern to civil affairs is the gap existing between unemployment insurance and social relief. Until now, only the ‘three no’s’ qualify for relief from welfare agencies. Current employees (including millions of workers in firms which have suspended or reduced production), pensioners, and redundant workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefit, are excluded from relief. In 1995, some 12 million residents in urban areas have fallen into poverty (Hong Kong Economic Journal 14 February 1996 and 15 February 1996). Another estimate is 30 million, including urban workers and their dependants (Zhu 1996b). Shanghai was the first city to introduce a city-wide social relief allowance, the ‘subsistence living protection line’ (zuidi shenghuo baozhang xian) in June 1993. By 1995, civil affairs departments in over twenty cities have followed suit (Zhongguo Shehui Gongzuo 1996, 5:5). However, the funding question has not been resolved. One thing is certain: there is no way the civil affairs budget can absorb the additional expenses required. Funding initiatives were also injected into the housing area. Two strategies were followed. One was to replace the system of hidden and nominal rent with open rent subsidies and raising rents to levels adequate for maintenance and repair. This was approached through a series of rent reforms. However, the difficulties are considerable— workers cannot afford higher rents, neither can enterprises, and the state finds the money to raise wages to offset rent increases. The other strategy was to encourage home ownership (Yun and Bai 1990, Lee 1993, 1995). The road to housing commodification is equally rocky. Low incomes, high costs of building, steep inflation and inadequate state finances to offer purchase subsidies conspire to make only the affluent and the lucky owners of residential property. The need to find alternative service systems to occupational welfare brings the narrow welfare system into the limelight. For their part, civil affairs agencies welcome the challenge to broaden their service scope and targets. As discussed earlier, there have been a number of adaptations. First, there has been cautious expansion of statutory services. Furthermore, access to CAD facilities were widened. Now needy persons who have families and work units are not excluded; out-patient treatment on a payment for service


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basis and the admission of self-finance residents are also possible. However, the institutional capacity of CADs remains limited. Consequently, urban neighbourhoods have been drafted for the job, the rationale being that they offer services that are cheap, flexible and sensitive to local needs. This was not new of course. Community social care had always played a supplementary role to enterprise welfare in urban areas. The difference was the vigour with which CADs propagandized and fostered such developments. Nevertheless, with few fresh funds and little human capital to inject, high expectations on community care are unwarranted. Variations in local resolve and ability are bound to produce unequal outcomes. The Ministry’s latest endeavour to increase society’s part in welfare is the encouragement of philanthropy. The China Charity Federation symbolizes this new spirit, as discussed in Chapter 6. The formal inclusion of mutual aid as an instrument of social security reinforces the importance of a pluralistic approach to welfare. Even external aid is to be warmly welcomed. The value of the above efforts notwithstanding, the attempts to find real options for enterprise welfare in Chinese cities have not gone very far. Social security reforms, commodification and service substitution strategies remain immature. Three obstacles make enterprise loadshedding particularly difficult. The first concerns paucity of resources. Successful social security reform depends on injections of new capital. Thanks to the policy of fiscal devolution, heavy deficits and a tax system still in its infancy, the state simply lacks the wherewithal to give additional funding. Enterprises lack money as well. Under the ethos of marketization, firms are asked to stand on their own feet and meet their customary obligations. Not all are capable. Units that lose out in competition with the non-state sector are more hamstrung than others. The second problem is organizational. Chinese power dynamics is distinguished by departmental and territorial fragmentation, the so-called tiao tiao kuai kuai (vertical and horizontal) relations. Functional agencies are often at odds with each other. Their policies frequently conflict. They also fight eagerly over turf. A good case is social security. At present, the remit for social security is divided among the Ministry of Labour (in charge of welfare for workers), the Ministry of Personnel (in charge of conditions of service for state cadres), the Ministry of Civil Affairs (in charge of welfare relief for the poor, veterans and peasants) and state-run insurance companies (which operate commercial schemes). According to government policy as set out in State Council Document 1991 (33), the Ministry of Civil Affairs has the oversight for retirement pensions for rural residents, including employees in rural enterprises (Zhongguo Minzheng December 1991:13 and March 1993:20–1). Because large pension pools can be built up for investment purposes, pension plans are markedly attractive. In light of this, competition is intense when ministries vie for overall charge over pension policy and fund management, sometimes ignoring state policy on target jurisdiction. Hence, civil affairs cadres complain about the aggressive ways in which the labour and insurance agencies compete for the pension fund market for employees in rural enterprise. By contrast, schemes covering unemployment and occupational injury have limited appeal. Cadres that I know, whether from the civil affairs, labour, trade unions or economic system reform bureaux, quite readily concede the point, in private of course, that departmental interest is the key hindrance to the unification of social security programmes and policy.


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This is because power and the financial interests of various bureaucracies are at stake. More fundamentally, the conception of the role of state enterprises is at stake. For over forty years, enterprises have been the building blocks of the socialist system. Functional fusion allows them to serve the state in many ways while also serving their own interests. Even though the danwei system is showing signs of stress and erosion, the state still refuses to allow massive privatization and firm bankruptcies for a number of reasons. First, mass redundancies will inflict hardship on workers because the needed compensatory framework is not yet in place. In a supposedly workers’ state, the charge of state callousness over workers’ livelihoods is disconcerting. Second, banks have become major stakeholders. As long as enterprises stay alive, there is still some hope that loans will one day be repaid. To allow firms to go under will dash this hope completely. More worrying still, the entire bank system may collapse if widespread closures occur. Third, and I suspect the most crucial reason, is the lack of functional alternatives to the danwei system. Enterprises are indispensable to the maintenance of the party-state because of their strategic importance. Firm closures and privatization of SOEs on a large scale will erode an important power base of the regime. Needless to say, state workers long used to the protection of their employing units are loathe to face unemployment. Apart from the younger and better educated workers, finding another job is very difficult indeed. The future prospects for enterprise welfare are complex. With just a few years to go before the start of the twenty-first century, Chinese state enterprises are encountering different fates due to varying circumstances. Firms that are insolvent or near bankrupty have problems in paying wages, much less social security and other fringe benefits. In extreme cases, workers go without pay for months. Many hard-up units can offer only a small living allowance to their employees. Some have asked staff to take extended or indefinite leave. Still others allow workers to use company assets to run small work projects or sell whatever stock or assets are available for subsistence. When the ability of enterprises to discharge their employee obligations breaks down completely, the danwei system will face real danger of disintegration (wajie). Labour experts in China have now found that in firms that are not functioning normally, both workers and management are likely to become disengaged from each other (liang bu zhao) (field interviews 1995, 1996). Employees are not expected to come to work anymore, neither will the danwei bother its workers. In the larger number of SOEs which have not reached this stage, wages are still paid. The full benefit, however, may not be available. This leads to feelings of frustration and turnover among workers who are younger and more capable. Only well-endowed units which honour their obligations to the full will be able to maintain staff loyalty. Meanwhile, workers in the non-state sector are used to standing on their own feet. Their earnings are often higher. Nevertheless, company benefits are practically non-existent. In these enterprises, industrial relations resemble those prevailing in capitalist settings. Their ranks have swelled in the last decade and a half. From a near-zero base in 1978, urban residents working in the private, joint and foreign sectors numbered 29.39 million at the end of 1995, as against 112.61 million in stateowned enterprises and 31.47 million in collective-owned units (China Statistical Yearbook 1996:87).


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CONCLUSION For the vast majority of Chinese citizens, welfare was intimately bound up with their collective. Before the reform, the commune system furnished collective protection against common hardship, albeit at a very basic level. Urbanites fared much better, then as well as now. For them, civil affairs aid was completely irrelevant because the work unit system provided a better cushion. Indeed, the integration of work and welfare was a unique feature of Chinese social experience. As it was, workers surrendering their personal independence to the dictates of the management, the party unit and the state were compensated by full economic and social security. Occupational benefits served as ‘carrots’: they maximized compliance, softened resistance and increased employee loyalty. The power of the Chinese danwei was supreme because, until recently, exit was impossible. It was more omnipotent than enterprises in other socialist countries (Walder 1986). As far as benefits go, big Japanese firms may be as generous. Nevertheless the management do not meddle with the private lives of their employees. Neither do they exact political allegiance on behalf of the state. The use of collectives as a welfare instrument had other social implications. One was the effect on stratification. Residential and employment status gave rise to unequal access to goods and services. Another ramification was the effect on personal space. When collectives constituted communities, the boundary between the public and private domains became hard to draw. The result may be unchecked interference with the private sphere. Third, there were impacts on human relationships. Within the collective, peer relations could be both intimate and tense; mutual aid and mutual suspicion existed alongside each other. Nevertheless, for the country as a whole, governance was facilitated because collectives acted as a tool to keep individuals in line. The onslaught of the economic reforms upset the old system. When the collective was either overturned (as in the countryside) or strained (as in urban areas), pre-existing welfare arrangements stood in need of replacement or augmentation. On the policy level, the state advanced the concept of complementarity—namely, commensurate policy packages have to accommodate and support each other. In concrete terms, what was required was that ‘backward’ social policies catch up with economic policies, the obvious assumption being that the former served the cause of economic development. Of relevance to the ‘narrow’ approach of welfare, civil affairs agencies were also asked to play their part to facilitate the success of economic reform. Despite the best of intentions, the reforms in special welfare had little impact on the social security for the vast majority of Chinese citizens. The gap has been more stunning in the countryside. Except in the more affluent areas, most rural communities can only support welfare programmes of the most basic kind. In default of an adequate layer of state and community services, the family becomes the main agency to provide for individual welfare and security. In China, because of the coexistence of old and new systems and inadequate state ability, the family and informal sectors have to take on more responsibility. This also happened in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the communist regimes.


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For the Chinese populace, the prospect of universal social rights is a distant vision. Nothing short of a complete overhaul of the structure of work, income distribution, welfare and life chances can assure social protection for all with any semblance of equality.

10 Conclusion SOCIAL WELFARE WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS: FEATURES AND DETERMINANTS Social welfare in China, as exemplified by the welfare work of civil affairs bureaux, local communities and mutual aid, is a manifestly residual approach to social care. It builds on a narrow conception of welfare. The core programmes aim at social amelioration for the most needy people in Chinese society—the ‘three-no’s’, hardship households, dependants of soldiers and martyrs, disaster victims, the disabled. These are people who are least able to help themselves either permanently or during times of contingency. Yet aid is confined to the most wretched among them and is discretionary, stingy and tainted with stigma. The relaxation of authoritarian control gives rise to more social deviance. Consequently, social rehabilitation work with people like prostitutes, vagabonds and drug users descends on statutory welfare agencies, just as it was in the early days of the regime. Additionally, ordinary people who are not destitute but are not duly served by production units and kin require services too. However, because resources are short, only selffinanced community-run programmes are on offer. For those with means, state services are available on a charge basis. The open access policy is a two-edged sword. On the one hand it meets new needs and brings in added revenue. On the other hand it creates stratification hierarchies and denies the poor. Significantly, the most numerous group in Chinese society, the peasants, are expected to practise self-reliance and mutual help. As always, they have never been the state’s responsibility. To pay for a new framework of rural welfare is clearly beyond the power of the state. Hence, peasant society must continue to stand on its own feet. What makes this more difficult is the stripping of the old collective canopy. Building new support networks on the strength of local resolve and endowment increases regional inequality. In the urban areas as well, growing marketization has reconfigured social interests and opportunities. One of the groups to fall from grace is workers in state enterprises, the traditional elites of socialist society. For them the gap between social insurance and relief is no longer bearable. Thus, across both town and country, the lack of subsistence guarantees highlights the failure of the welfare system. The state is forced to expand social assistance—in a few cities first and eventually in the rural hinterland in the next century. China must solve its key welfare paradox—just as the country enters its most prosperous epoch in history, the need for poverty alleviation is at its most acute. The meaning of this challenge is not lost to the state, for inaction is a sure recipe for disaster. So, the state has tried to inject more resources and to be more inventive in fighting poverty and in delivering life support. Realizing its own limitation, it has called on greater input from society. Over the last decade and a half, more welfare burdens have been placed on the shoulders of local communities. More recently, philanthropy and private initiatives have also been fostered.

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In Chapters 2, 7, 8 and 9, I have argued that four factors account for China’s conservative approach to welfare. First of all, the state’s welfare ideology and preferred growth model mitigates against large-scale direct intervention in welfare and relief. For Chinese communists, social welfare stands for non-productive consumption and as such contravenes the socialist principle of distribution according to work before the advent of communist society. The pursuit of economic development is especially pronounced in the reform era. Social policies receive attention only in so far as they abet the growth process. At the same time, the government’s ability to speed up welfare development is held back by dire constraints—budgetary deficits, insubordination of local authorities and organizational deficiencies. As a result, welfare pluralism presents itself as the panacea; collectives, families and individuals must take fuller responsibility for their own protection. Second, there is the influence of Chinese culture. Norms of family solidarity, localism and a passive state role in welfare matters mingle with such values as hard work, containment of want, self-reliance and acceptance of fate to form a bedrock of welfare conservatism characteristic of a rural economy. In the past, the roles played by families, kin, local communities and religious organizations were more important than that of the state. During the Republican period, the privations of war and lame government also meant that the high expectations of the state were untenable. This historical legacy appealed to a leadership anxious to deter mass dependency and already beset with many problems of statehood. Thus, in the name of preserving old virtues, the state actively exploits old values and practices. Family duty, in particular, becomes the sacred cow eagerly milked by an economizing state. Third, the persistence of Chinese familism absolves the state from taking over private care functions. Firm notions of domestic obligation and wide observance of family reciprocity are positively garnered to allow the state to give priority to political and economic tasks. Besides pragmatic considerations, the moral superiority of family care is well accepted. For the people, observing one’s duty to the family is right and proper. The state’s faith in utilitarian familism is also unflinching. As long as families remain intact, direct welfare intervention is needed for a handful. Thus supply of aid is contingent on the lack of family ties. Fourth, a residual role for direct welfare and relief is feasible because of the centrality of the collective. As agencies of production, distribution and political control, work units dominate civil life. Their ubiquity makes them a convenient tool of welfare delivery. Indeed the fusion of employment and benefit structures strengthens loyalty between the collective and its members, eases governance and saves state money in setting up special facilities. The universal and comprehensive nature of the collective umbrella serves to contain the demand for welfare services so that the civil affairs system need only deal with the emergency requirements of the workless. The advent of a market economy undermines pre-existing collective guarantees. To a large extent the impetus for welfare reforms comes from the disruptions unleashed by the changing economic structure. Beyond restating the salience of these forces, it is necessary to take a closer look at their interconnections. What types of explanations lie behind them? To this I would reply that the roles of political economy and culture are unquestionably salient. In a socialist system, the state dominates and envelops society. Just as importantly, it


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directs and controls political and economic life. Enjoying a complete monopoly of authority and resources, the party-state dictates the shape of institutional arrangements and the terms of their operation. As the basic structure of society, the economy is likewise subject to public management. Every economic decision is in fact a political decision. During the heyday of authoritarian politics, political criteria overshadowed economic thinking in matters of production, circulation and reward. In so far as welfare is grafted onto the occupational structure, the vesting of welfare rights is contingent on one’s link to the labour process. In this sense, all welfare agendas have political and economic overtones. The social construction of need becomes bound up with the state’s conception of welfare, the developmental goals it embraces, its expectations on welfare, the means it chooses and the constraints it faces. The superior treatment of working people in general and of the industrial elite in particular can be understood in this light, as can the bias against people who have no work ability and agricultural producers whose role is to support the urban vanguard. In essence then, the part played by the state and the collective in the welfare question is a matter of political economy. This was especially true in the past when the state ruled society with an iron hand. It remains relevant today notwithstanding the attenuation of state influence in a more liberal environment. The weight of culture is as striking. In shaping the welfare landscape, the shadow cast by the traditional legacy is unmistakable. Specifically, residual expectations on the state and utilitarian familism are garnered to uphold individual self-reliance and mutual obligations. Likewise, hopes are now eagerly pinned on the exploitation of voluntary and philanthropic initiatives. Now that charity enjoys a full political rehabilitation, it is hailed as a necessary supplement to the work of the state. At another level, certain values underpinning welfare in both cultural and revolutionary paradigms synchronize with one another. These include the work ethic, self-reliance, frugality, and public-spiritedness, not to mention filial obligations. They are all essential ingredients of the conception of welfare, be it responsibility for oneself or compassion for others. In the first three decades of communist rule, welfare values and institutional practices coalescing around family support, local self-help, limited relief and a small state role showed remarkable continuity. Only the urban proletariat were allowed to become dependent on the state and the work unit. Even for them, the new calculus of reform makes the iron rice bowl increasingly anachronistic. The market logic is underpinned by the values of competition and efficiency. Strangely enough cultural stresses on self-reliance and private resolve make better ideological bedfellows than socialist concepts of equality and collective responsibility. In the welfare domain as well, culture turns out to be a blessing more than a drag. The interaction of culture and political economy impinges mightily on China’s welfare trajectory. A holistic and dynamic appreciation of welfare cannot do without either perspective. Social welfare in China is not a generous enterprise. The clients it serves have peripheral status in society. The rural-urban divide represents an unbridged chasm, pushing the peasantry to the rank of second-class citizens. Deprivation of proper family life and labour participation make social paupers of the affected persons. Even the conferment of ‘most adorable’ status (on soldiers and their dependants) is not enough to guarantee decent treatment if such groups have to depend on the charity of neighbours and work mates. Other unfortunate persons stand in line for ignominy for similar reasons.

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As moral claimants, all needy persons, including the rural masses, are denied the respect that should be theirs if the state and society truthfully honour their formal obligations. What they get instead is slender compassion. What is even more ironic is that, notwithstanding its humility, the narrow welfare system is asked to bolster other social institutions when their social functions recede. In other words, the welfare weapon is used to ease the pangs of social convulsions and contribute to the stability of society. The call for new initiatives in social security and other programmes to improve the lot of the needy can be interpreted in this light. Within the scope of civil affairs, experiments with fupin, insurance schemes, social security funds, pension projects, and cash subsidies for serving soldiers are all attempts to tackle new problems arising from market transition. In essence then, transformations in the ‘small system’ are invited responses to structural changes in the ‘big world’. The failure to increase state resources for welfare perpetuates its residual status. Even the guarantee of subsistence right remains remote.

SOCIAL WELFARE AND CHINESE SOCIETY China’s welfare system is wedded to its basic social institutions. The creation of socialist economic relations has significantly influenced the contours of its benefit structure. By adjusting its functions and processes, the welfare system reacts to the environment and also exerts its impact. In this sense, the welfare system is both a dependent and independent variable in social change. Because of this dynamic interface, a study of welfare in transition reveals interesting facets of society. The first point of departure is the country’s socialist framework. Chinese socialism is supposedly committed to human betterment on the basis of equality and fraternity. Many state policies are decidedly egalitarian in intent, though less successful in outcome (because of discriminative treatment for different groups). In our examination, the basic social institutions such as work units, communes, and neighbourhoods all aspire to community and welfare besides fulfilling their productive functions. In the event, they become small communities, distinguished by mutual dependence and close human relationships, but at the cost of privacy and personal freedom. This framework is punctuated and transformed by economic change. China after Mao is a freer society in most life spheres. From the vantage point of individuals, the system has become less oppressive. Nevertheless, the erosion of the collective structure has a downside. The masses are exposed to new risks and insecurity. They are also told to fend for themselves. Second, despite the system’s socialist ideology and machinery, traditions are potent in shaping expectations and behaviour. Even now, families remain close-knit and members are bonded in mutual obligations. Lineages disappeared in the early days of the regime. Their replacements, the local collectives, function as social and administrative parents to their members. Meanwhile the state continues to act as the paterfamilias. The contemporary polity looks strangely like the old Confucian order—hierarchical, authoritarian and paternalistic—and civil society remains stunted and repressed. In livelihood matters, families, kin and local communities take up more space than the state. The policy to pluralize care functions increases their role even more. In the mean time, they still have to do the state’s bidding while the latter retains the mandate to meddle.


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Third, China is very much a dual society. In terms of social structure, income, welfare entitlements and life chances, rural China is a world apart from the cities. This schism breeds envy and discontent. In the area of welfare, the end of communes and the advent of markets both destroy the pre-existing collective framework and thus any semblance of equality. The vacuum in social security protection for the rural masses becomes all the more glaring and unjust. However, the arrangements that have been put in place so far are experimental, piecemeal and precarious. Contemporaneously, population influxes into urban centres throw the bifurcated administrative systems into a quandary. Rural migrants have not won the social rights open to urban residents. Even for the latter, the hitherto secure workfare system frays under the friction of enterprise reforms, introduction of labour markets and transmutation of the ownership structure. In short, an already stratified society is opened to further fragmentation and heterogeneity. Caught between the pull of plan and market, China in the 1990s experiences all the tensions of a hybrid society. Fourth, China faces formidable constraints in its struggle to meet the aspirations of its citizens. By any standard, the achievements of its economic reforms are impressive. For the majority, livelihood is less squalid than under a stifling command economy. In many places, affluence has arrived. In spite of this, social development trails behind economic progress as the nation strives for even more rapid growth. Furthermore, its nascent taxation system allows the flight of sorely needed revenue. Likewise, devolving fiscal powers to local areas and enterprises denudes receipts of the centre. An unwelcome byproduct, in policy terms, is the loss of central control over local development. This point has been taken up in various points in the present study. The policy of privatization emerges as a strategy to deal with the state’s authority and fiscal crisis. This may be unavoidable. Nevertheless, the retreat of the state leaves nagging doubts about the ability of society to rise to the challenge. The weaker members and poor localities desperately need help. The lack of harmony in the social and economic domains was already evident in the 1980s. In the first half-decade, economic liberalization and open door policies brought hope, speedy economic results and gains in living standards. By the second half, the contradictions of a two-track economy were visible to all. People living in such times had many more opportunities. The more capable have become affluent. For many, economic survival could no longer be taken for granted. Within the labour system, work contracts have been extended to the collective sector; more tenured staff in state firms have switched to contract employment. In the social security arena, gaps in the provisions for retirement, unemployment, health, work injury and maternity required redress. Likewise, the need to link up social insurance and social relief was recognized. More signficantly, it was important to shorten the welfare gap between urban and rural China, if not close it entirely. Since the mid-1980s, vast numbers of people, as many as one in twelve, have joined the ranks of the floating population. They still live in an official limbo even though they live and work in the cities. As a result, they are reduced to buying their requirements in the market or starting rough and ready services in the burgeoning ghettos. The less successful among them could well become China’s lumpen proletariat. China in the 1990s is a restless society. It has achieved a good deal of social progress measured in terms of nutrition, income, education and health. The deepening of economic

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reforms holds out the promise for greater abundance. However, contradictions abound. One climactic testimony is the eruption of massive student protests which prompted a violent crackdown on 4 June 1989. Sparked off by the death of Hu Yaobang, the liberalminded former party chairman, student demonstrations were overtly aimed at bureaucratic corruption, insensitivity to student hardship and lack of democracy in decision-making. However, the social origins of these protests can be traced to the contradictions associated with the birth of a mixed economy—marked inequality, the threat to vested interests, the misery of disadvantaged groups, failure to meet rising expectations, and so on (A. Chan 1991). The volatility of these forces makes the search for order more important than ever. The Chinese government, after embarking on a course of economic consolidation and adjustment from late 1988 to 1991, is now more keenly aware that social peace should prevail. At the end of 1996, officials proclaimed that the Chinese economy has made a soft landing (Hong Kong Economic Journal 31 December 1996). Yet many of the economic, political and social conflicts that have besieged Chinese society have not relented. On the contrary, they look set to intensify in the years to come. Also, the prospect of political liberalization appears uncertain as China contemplates the turmoil that emerged from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, especially the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and draws the lesson that it cannot afford to relax state and party power over civil society. On 19 January 1997, Deng Xiaoping died at the ripe old age of 93. Seemingly, political powers have passed peacefully to his successors. Only time can tell whether this is a truly stable succession.

THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS The story of civil affairs is a case study of social welfare in practising socialism. As said before, its basic features are highly idiosyncratic. The system is a mixture of both formal and informal care. Its statutory organ is a curious bureau with little prestige, disparate duties and a deficient structure. Its position of weakness is tied to the primary ethos of the economic state and the state preference for work-based systems of life support. Without the economic reforms, it may have slumbered on in its inconsequence. Even though the ugly duckling has no chance of becoming a swan, the dawn of markets stirs its feathers. A sense of promise is interpreted by those within it that see the challenge of enlarging its say in social security. Thus in its striving to raise its usefulness, the civil affairs ministry finds a new sense of meaning, which brings out fresh ideas and interesting experiments in a hitherto stagnant system. On this level, the detailed description of residual welfare in action is an exotic saga. Does it have anything to offer to social welfare theory? In terms of locating determinants of welfare, the current study confirms the significance of structural and cultural factors in the approach to welfare—the influence of tradition, the role of the family, the collective and the state. In various chapters, parallels with experiences elsewhere have been drawn and will not be repeated. Additionally, the comparison identifies a number of themes which have salience in a global sense. First, the relevance of continuity and change. In China, the legacy of its welfare culture casts a long shadow. At the same time, changes evolve from the need to adapt to new issues. The system outcome is thus an amalgam of both old and new elements. Chapters 5


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and 6 chronicle the major reforms in the system. Second, there is the importance of primary groups and informal networks. In China, care provided by families, kin, neighbours, friends and workmates makes up the bulk of welfare support enjoyed by Chinese citizens. Elsewhere, sluggish growth, fiscal problems, high service costs and disenchantment with statutory provisions since the mid-1970s have helped Western nations to ‘rediscover’ the potency of the informal sector and private initiatives in welfare. On this score, there is clear evidence of convergence between Chinese and Western approaches. In post-communist Eastern Europe as well, rejection of the old system in its totality also leads to the introduction of marketization strategies in social policy in an attempt to break down the hegemony of state socialism and increase democracy. Admittedly the promotion of voluntary action is often laced by a hidden agenda to save public money. None the less, Chinese experience shows that primary and informal ties are as sustaining as help given by welfare bureaucracies. Also, intact families and communities are indispensable to personal well-being. The danger, however, lies in exploiting such institutions without giving enough support to nourish them. As well, China’s reliance on family and locality illustrates this latent pitfall. Third, welfare arrangements respond to the challenge of social change. They also make their imprint on social life. In the course of industrialization and modernization, social transformations such as population ageing, falling birth rate, nuclear families and change in family attitudes are world-wide experiences. In China, likewise, these issues have adverse implications for social care. Other problems are the effects of a developing economy. These have to do with increasing urbanization, unemployment of surplus rural labour and income inequalities. In the first 30 years, the PRC was able to control these problems with the iron hand of central planning and political absolutism. The reforms opened the floodgates. Until now, social policy solutions remain handicapped in mitigating the adverse effects of social change. In many ways, these issues are old and familiar tensions in any society. Specifically, what is the balance of claims between the haves and have-nots? How can conflicts be resolved between work incentive and right to welfare? To what extent should entitlement take account of different contribution, merit, status and residence? China’s choice is a disjointed hierarchy that discriminates against the ‘three-no’s’, the disabled, the poor and rural dwellers. Her failure in the test of equality is not unique. All systems discriminate. To the extent that equality is a key measure of social justice, the latter will always arouse debate as consensus on what constitutes justice is always contestable. Finally, China has to struggle between what is ideal and what is feasible. On the one hand, Chinese socialism is committed to egalitarianism and need fulfilment; yet paucity of resources does not permit generosity. As said before, events in the last 18 years highlight the dilemma. For as long as different areas of development have to scramble for limited state funds, welfare standards cannot attain uniformity and adequacy. In this sense, ideals have been compromised by material shortages. There is consonance in Europe and America. It is also characteristic of social policy systems in Eastern Europe after the fall of state socialism. In short, the range of problems that China faces has affinity with the experience in many nations. Her responses are also broadly similar. Does this make China an example under an existing welfare paradigm? Or is it a unique model with its own stamp—in

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short, welfare socialism with Chinese characteristics? In my view the second answer is more plausible. First of all, China’s social care system is a mixed model. It combines at least two separate components. Civil affairs welfare is plainly residual—highly selective, minimal in standard and scope, and remedial. Operating in parallel, but not linked in any way, is a collective vehicle for the working population, with an upper tier for the urban population and a lower deck for the rural masses. The treatment for the urban and industrial elites is as comprehensive and generous as institutional welfare in the most advanced welfare states. Meanwhile, entitlement for peasants is marked by huge gaps and primitive programmes. The changes in the institutional framework have made related arrangements even more chaotic and deficient. The resulting hybrid has less coherence and stability than other mixed economies of welfare. Second, China’s approach to welfare is very different from Mishra’s structural model. The Chinese system is an odd mixture. The dual (or multiple) economy of welfare negates Mishra’s ideal type of universalism, needs-based distribution, state monopoly, high resource commitment and citizen right. In a nutshell, the Chinese welfare system is a bastard, not a thoroughbred. Indeed, it is arguable whether Mishra’s construct is not a mythical creation in the first place. The social conditions unearthed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the wake of communism’s collapse do not resemble what the theory postulates. In a way, one may question how far the record of actually existing socialism has lived up to its professed ideals. One missing ingredient seems to be an economy that delivers. Fortunately, Chinese socialism has averted disintegration thanks to decade-long efforts at open door and reform. However, the road to market transition is rocky still. Up to this moment, China’s model is not a pluralistic model in the Western sense. In their diverse forms, the non-state sectors—the collective, the neighbourhood, the family—enjoy little genuine autonomy in welfare matters. Despite some loosening of state control in social and economic life, the state still holds the right to intervene and impose. There are still comparatively few voluntary associations that operate outside the influence of the state. Most of them are state-sponsored or kept on a short leash. In spite of their deep involvement in social care, the freedom of mass agencies to do as they please may be subject to recall. Their social work activities remain a delegated assignment, representing participation in service delivery rather than policy formulation. Of course they are not completely powerless. They can dither, resist or ignore orders. Open rebellion, however, is not accepted. For these reasons, the comparison with a corporatist model, where state, capital and labour in their organized forms have stipulated rights to make social and economic decisions, is also inappropriate. Finally, in retrospect, the modified welfare mix concept has offered a workable framework for analysing social welfare in China under the dual influence of capitalism and socialism. It must be pointed out that the role of markets in social policy is only just beginning. There has been wider use of fee charging in welfare services, and limited introduction of commercial services in child care, education and health (Hillier 1988, Henderson 1990, Mok and Chan 1996). However, it is in economic life that market forces have made their mark. The commercial supply of welfare goods is in its infancy as the fourth component of China’s welfare mix.


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To conclude, it has to be said that the experience of China does not fit at all easily into any of the grand narratives used in comparative social policy. This study has clearly demonstrated the limitations of existing paradigms. Perhaps, if one probes deeply enough into the structure and history of any welfare system, it is only natural to find out its uniqueness. Still, I believe that casting one’s questions in theoretical terms is not futile. It allows one to delineate the general from the specific across global experience. It also gives one conceptual tools with which to examine empirical reality. In truth the current study has not produced an alternative theory. What it has suggested is an analytical framework that builds on the force of culture and political economy. By delving into the morphology of one welfare system and positing it to its structural and cultural correlates, the study sheds light on the many enigmas surrounding the moral treatment of needy and marginal groups in society. For them, the interplay of values, politics and economics will always intrude into decisions that affect their well-being. The welfare question is a negotiated truce made against a cacophony of social forces. It is not a simple response to the human predicament and cries for compassion.

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Index

accumulation model, urban relief 114–5 Adoption Law 111–2 age dependency ratio 161 agricultural producers cooperatives 169 agriculture: collectives 1, 34, 131, 134, 150–1; entrepreneurship 178; fupin farms 93; household contracting 1, 41,56–; production 55, 56; for subsistence 26, 27; tax exemption 92 All-China Federation of Trade Unions 113 almshouses 29 Amity Foundation 122 ancestor worship 25 Anti-Japanese War 27 army personnel 40–1; see also soldiers Australian aid 99 authoritarianism, social stability 26, 130 barefoot doctors 156 beggars 49, 89, 112 Beijing, community services 117–8 Bell, D. 10 Beveridge, William ix birth planning policy 61, 159–61 Blind Persons Welfare Association 45 boys’ status 24, 154, 161 Britain, social welfare 10–1, 21, 62–3 Buddhism 25, 36 bureaucracy 12 cadres 95, 142, 169 Canadian Development Agency 99 care and support contracts 90 Caritas Hong Kong 122 cash subsidies 177 Castles, F.G. 9

Index Chan, C.L. W. 5 Chan, A. 159, 194 charity 7, 25, 30, 36, 123 Chen Sheying 6, 134 Chen Suping 94 Chen Yi 45 Chen Yun 93 Chengdu City, Sichuan 93 child care 153 children: abandoned 108, 112,160–1; disabled 109; infanticide 62, 160; sex ratios 160; sold 50; unregistered 161–2 children’s homes 43, 108, 160–1 China Charity Federation 71, 120, 123, 143, 185 China Disabled Persons Federation 121 China International Famine Relief Commission 33 China Research Centre on Ageing 163–4 China Youth Development Foundation 123 Chinese Sociological Association 155 Chow, N.W.S. 5, 6 Christianity 25, 33 citizenship, women 32 citizenship thesis, social rights 11 civil affairs departments (CADs): administration/management 39–40,129; communism 38; Cultural Revolution 46–7,48–9; disabled soldiers homes 81; expenditure 136–40; funding 142; post- revolution 43–4; poverty alleviation 93; residential homes 48; social security 40–3; social welfare 18, 38–43,104,127–31; socialist construction phase 45–8; socialist transformation phase 44–5; welfare production enterprises 47, 105 Civil Affairs Ministry (MCA) x; ambiguity of role 141, 194–6; and CCP 126; effectiveness of programmes 53–4; neighbourhood programmes 3, 65; popular image 53;

223

Index powers 38–9; records of service 50–1; serving masses 127–8; social/disaster relief 130–1; social welfare 1, 2, 3–4, 7, 60, 105–7; spending 51–3; unemployment 114; welfare residualism 49–54; welfare service provision 105–7 civil society: illegal marriages 162; mediation 150; state surveillance 120–1 class conflict 11, 35, 169 COEs (collective-owned enterprises) 58, 170 cohabitation 162 collective health insurance 57, 156, 179 collectives: agriculture 2, 34, 132, 134, 151; funding 66–7; as social structure 171–3; social welfare role 168,173–8,190; urban 172–3 commodification 59, 64, 185 communal care facilities 89 communes: Mao 169; mass aid 40; peasants 132, 151; rural 171–2; township/village control 56 communism: civil affairs agencies 38; family 147–8; philanthropy 120; reforms 131–5; social welfare 126–7 Communist Party of China 45, 126 communist youth league 120 community-run welfare homes 69, 136 community services (shequ fuwu) 116–20; Civil Affairs Ministry 65, 136; corporatization 119; diversity 119; funding 67–8; inequality 120; special needs 117; take-up 119–20

224

Index Company Law 181 company-run services 175 compassion 25 competition 73 Confucianism 23–4,28–9,36 conscription 76, 80–1 Conscription Law 46, 83 consumer price index, urban/rural 143 consumption 132–3,151, 171, 190 contract labour 58, 158, 180 contract responsibility system 66, 181 convenience services 117, 119 cooperatives 44, 46, 169–71 corruption 31, 85, 124 credit schemes 2, 96, 99–100 Croll, E. 5, 56, 60, 174 Cui Naifu 71, 94, 97, 117, 121, 123, 128, 166 cultural factors, social welfare 12–3, 18, 21, 189 cultural/recreational amenities 117 Cultural Revolution: civil affairs departments 47,49–; familism 151; Internal Affairs Ministry 49; philanthropy 120; production 55; self-reliance 71; state agencies 48–9; urban relief 112 culture of welfare 13, 21 Dalian formula, urban relief 114–5 danwei system 174, 175, 177, 182, 187; see also work units daughters’ status 23, 154 Davis, D. 5, 150 Davis-Friedmann, D. 5, 154, 174 Deacon, B. 10, 13, 14, 16 decollectivization 178 demobilization 41, 47, 83 demographic changes 12, 61, 139, 147, 159–61 Deng Yunte 27, 29 Deng Pufang 122 Deng Xiaoping: death 194; economic reform 55, 133; societal framework 155; southern tour 73 development aid 179–80

225

Index development loans, entitlement 93 deviance 112 disabled people: children 108; elderly 155; employment 43, 111; legislation 111; organizations 121; soldiers 78–9,81; workshops 91 disaster relief 1, 42,66, 86 disasters, natural 29,32–,42–,46 distribution ideology 14–5 district and provincial clubs 28 divorce 149, 162 Dixon, J. 5, 39, 41, 173 double-support formula 93 drug users 112 Dunlop, J. 9 duoyuan xing (multifaceted civil affairs work) 128 ecology-based values 25–6 economic reforms 4, 55, 133 education: drop-outs 57; enrolments decreasing 57; indoctrination 40, 93; missionaries 33; rural areas 174; see also re-education egalitarianism 14–5, 59, 120, 173, 195 elderly: abuse of 165; care of 6, 162–6; disabled 154; incomes 163–4; living with children 153, 162–3; residential care 89, 91, 165; social care 163; support for 90–1,145, 163 embezzlement, relief funds 53 employment: for disabled people 43, 110, 111; job exchanges 83; job placement 84–5; lifelong 58, 131, 152; male/female 99; rigidities 180;

226

Index socialism 15; universal 152; urban 41, 157; women 99, 153; see also contract labour employment status: labour insurance 175; social welfare 1, 2, 15, 133, 168, 190 enterprise reforms 180–1; see also COEs; SOEs entitlement to welfare: development loans 93; employment 2, 15, 133, 168, 190; preferential treatment programme 40; relief 112 entrepreneurship: agriculture 179; rural 90; social welfare 69–71,73 equality: of distribution 14; and efficiency 60; gender factors 32 Esping-Andersen, G. 8, 12 Europe, industrialization 22 Europe, Eastern 10, 15–6 experimental development zones 96 Factory Inspection Law 31 Factory Law 31 Fairbank, J.K. 25 familism: attacked 27, 34; Cultural Revolution 151; social care 144, 189; utilitarian xi, 147,155 family: communist view 147–8; in decline 192; denouncing of 151; elderly living with 153, 163; housing 152; industrialization 147; as institution 62, 147; and lineage 26–7,34; Marxist view 147; modernization 27;

227

Index mutual aid 153–4,163; networks 163; pre-reform functions 153–4; relief entitlement 112; responsibility 150; self-help 48; as social unit 147; social welfare 2, 3, 18; social welfare policy 154; in socialist society 147–9,166–7; state policies 150–3; as unit of consumption 151; urban production 151–3 family obligation: care of elderly 165; social care 22–3,35, 144, 147; state endorsement 34, 150 family planning 62, 159–61 family values 18, 21 famine 27, 29,46 famine relief 33 fatalism 26 fee-charging: community programmes 119; poverty 119, 145, 189; social welfare services 43, 68–9,72, 196; underutilization 109; veteran institutions 82 fee-for-service welfare 43 Fei Hsiao-tung 40; see also Fei Xiaotong Fei Xiaotong 24, 26 Ferge, Z. 15, 16, 128, 132 Feuchtwang, S. 5 filial piety (xiao) 23,145, 150 Firth, R.W. 23 ‘five guarantees’ 42, 45, 48, 88–90,132, 154, 174 ‘five guarantees’ service centres 89–90 flooding 30, 71, 123, 180 food shortages 94; see also famine foreign aid, acceptance 71 foundling hospitals 30 freedom, rural/urban 61 Friedlander, W.A. 7 fuben (support with capital) 93 funeral reform 39 fupin (poverty aid) 86, 92, 93–5,131,179–80

228

Index

229

fupin farms 93 fupin hu (development aid recipient household) 154 fupin xiezuo (partnership in poverty alleviation) 97–8 Furtak, R.K. 15, 126 fuzhi (support through education) 93 Fuzhou formula, urban relief 114–5 girls: abandoned 108, 160–1; as daughters 23, 154; infanticide 62, 160; school drop-outs 57 Glazer, N. 1, 13– Goode, W.J. 150 Gough, I. 8 grain payments 155 grain prices 56 Grameen Bank credit schemes 99–100 granary system 29 grants, and loans 88 Great Leap Forward 46, 48, 151 group insurance principle 23, 147 groups, and individuals 34 Gui Shixun 163 guilds, trade/craft 32–3 Han Yu-shan 23 Harbeson, F. 9 hardship, relief 42, 93, 154 Harrell, S. 26, 148, 150 health care: barefoot doctors 156; danwei 182; peasants 56–7,174, 179; primary health care 179; privatization 156; SOE allowances 158 health insurance reform 182–3 Heidenheimer, A.J. 10 Heifer Project International 99 hidden unemployed 157 Higgins, J. 18 Home Affairs Ministry 38 home ownership 185 homes of glory 81; see also residential homes Hong Kong, district and provincial clubs 28 Hong Kong based agencies 122

Index household 18, 104, 147; see also family household contracting 1, 41,56–,61 household levies 89 household registration policy 2, 41, 56, 151, 153 household responsibility system 56 housing: commodity 59, 64; costs 158; family basis 152; funding 185; rental reforms 59, 159 Hsiao Kung-chuan 29 hu (household) 147 hui guan (district and provincial clubs) 28 human relations 23, 24 human resource agencies 83 Hungary 15–6, 132 Hussain, A. 5, 57, 151 ideology 12, 14–5, 39 Ikels, C. 155 illness, poverty 156 income: inequalities 94, 120, 159; insecurity 115; rural 55, 77, 153, 154–6,163–4; urban dwellers 55, 152, 157, 163–4 income generation 109; see also profit-making indigenous groups, agencies 123 individuals, status 34–5, 167 indoctrination 40, 93 industrialization 9, 22, 60, 147 inequality: community services 120; as evil 29; income 94, 121, 159; regional 97–8 infanticide, female 62, 160 inflation: poverty 95; preferential treatment grants 76; price controls relaxed 157, 159; rural families 62; vulnerable groups 143 institutions: disabled soldiers/veterans 81–2;

230

Index

231

family/lineage 26–7,34; locality-based 28; social welfare ix, 26–33,64, 105–9,136, 191–859; state 29–32; voluntary agencies 32–4 Internal Affairs Ministry (MIA) 1, 38, 44, 45, 47,48–9 investment 15, 132 iron rice bowl policy 60, 174 Japanese social welfare 21 jia 148; see also family Jiang Zemin 97 Jiangxi, mutual funds 96 job exchanges 83 job placement 84–5 Johnson, N. 18 journals/magazines 7 Kallgren, J. 5, 60, 133 Kerr, C. 9 kinship 26–7; see also family Kohl, J. 10 labour contract system 58, 158, 180 labour insurance 174–5; see also social security labour regulations 58 Labour Union Act 31 land reform 46, 131, 150, 168–9,178 Le Grand, J. 62 Lebeaux, C.N. 9, 147 Leung, J.C. B. 6 Li Peng 71, 97 liberalization 121,144 lifelong employment 58, 132, 152 lineages 26–7,34, 151, 192 Liu, H. 5 Liu Shaoqi 49 loans 88, 93, 96, 99–100 local amenities 43 localism 28 lottery 71, 124 Lu Feng 172 Lu Mouhua 7 Ma Youcai 163

Index McAuley, A. 132 MacQuarie, L. 5 Mao Zedong: civil affairs 38; communes 170; cooperatives 171; egalitarianism 120, 173; Great Leap Forward 46; peasant power 169; production/consumption 132, 133; social policy 59; social welfare 5, 6, 49, 112; tradition 148 marginalization: civil affairs workers 142; non-productive people 1–4, 129, 135, 145 Mark Six betting tickets 71, 124 marketization: Eastern Europe 16; prices 58; social welfare xi, xii, 1, 61, 130 marriage: illegal 162; legislation 147, 150; obligatory 23; registration 39 Marriage Law 147, 149–50 Marshall, T.H. 12, 21 martyr families, relief 76, 78 Marxism: base/superstructure 15; civil affairs policy 141; class conflict 11; family 147; ideology 15; ownership 169; production/consumption 132 mass aid 40, 78, 127–8 mass organizations 120, 126 medical work, foreign support 32–3; see also health care Mencius 23–4,29 Meng Weina 122 mental hospitals 43, 48 mental retardation 117 microlending projects 99–100 migrants, remittances to ancestral village 28, 156 military pay/recruitment 79–80;

232

Index see also soldiers Ministry of Civil Affairs: see Civil Affairs Ministry Ministry of Internal Affairs: see Internal Affairs Ministry Ministry of Social Affairs: see Social Affairs Ministry Mishra, R. 10, 11, 13–4, 16 missionaries 33, 45 modernization: economic reform 55, 133; family 27; family planning 159–61 mortality rates, orphanages 108 mutual aid 8; community services 116–20; family 153–4,163; philanthropy 24,120–4; as social care 35, 189; as social security 123; trade/craft guilds 32–3,35; villages 28 mutual aid groups 169 mutual funds 96 Myers, C. 9 Nann, R.C. 6 Nationalists, social welfare 30–1 neighbourhood programmes 3, 65 neighbourhood solidarity 172 nepotism 85 occupational benefits 158 old age homes: see residential homes old age support: see elderly open coastal cities 58 open door policy 56, 60 orphanages 43, 108, 160–1 ownership 169 Oxfam Hong Kong 99 Oyen, E. 63 Pan Yunkang 149 Parish, W.L. 5, 28, 49, 170, 174 patriarchal authority 149 peasants:

233

Index

234

collective health insurance 57; communal welfare obligations 66–7; communes 132, 151; cooperatives 44, 46; credit unions 2; freedom 61; health care 57,174, 179; kinship groups 25–6; Mao 169; poverty 27, 92; protection 173; social security 179; subsistence farming 26, 27; township formation 40; urban migration 2–3, 61, 112, 157; see also rural areas; rural/urban differences pensions 1, 59, 62, 76, 91, 175, 182 People’s Liberation Army 49, 76 people’s representative councils 44 Perry, E.J. 55 personal savings 8 philanthropy 24,36, 72, 120–4,144, 185 Pinker, R. 10, 13, 21 Platte, E. 150 political economy 190 politics, and social welfare 10, 11 pollution, spiritual 71, 163 Poor Law, Qing 29–30 population, ageing 62, 161; see also demographic change poverty: alleviation 86, 92–100; definitions 94, 100; 8–7 programme 96; fee-charging 109, 119, 146, 189; illness 156; inflation 95; peasants 27, 93; as problem 132; regional aid 92; spread of 17; subjective experience 101; urban 113, 157 poverty alleviation partnerships 97–8 Poverty Alleviation Leading Group 100 poverty line, revisions 93–4,100 preferential treatment programmes 40, 47, 49, 76–82

Index

235

price controls 29, 157, 159 primary health care, in decline 179 privatization: health care 156; social welfare 17–8,62–73, 106, 143; as socialization 4 production: agriculture 55, 56; and consumption 132, 133; Marxism 132; urban family 151–3 profit-making, welfare services 68, 71, 108–9 Project Hope 123 prostitution 45, 112, 162 psychiatric services 69, 81 public accumulation fund 173 public assistance scheme 113–4 public health insurance 152 public ownership 169 public transport 116 Pusic. E. 17. 15 Qing dynasty, state aid 29 Qinghai Community Development Project 99 Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province 95 qunzhong xing (people-oriented civil affairs work) 128 re-education 43, 44, 45 reforms, communism 131–5 regional aid, poverty 92 regions, inequality 97–8 registration of marriage 39 rehabilitation 44, 45, 112 relief fund responsibility system 86–8 relief funds: Benxi 115; decreasing 136–8; diverted 96; embezzlement 54; reforms 86 relief work: Civil Affairs Ministry 130–1; disasters 1, 42,66, 86; entitlement 112; famine 33; hardship 42, 93, 154; martyr families 76, 78; rural 86–91;

Index social 42,44, 48, 130–1,184–5; urban 45 112–5 religious values 25 relocation, workers 99 remittances, urban migration 28, 157 rent reforms 59, 158, 185 resettlement, demobilized soldiers 41 residential homes: civil affairs departments 49; community-run 69, 136; disabled soldiers 81; elderly 90, 91, 165; homes of glory 81; orphanages 43, 108, 160–1; profit- making 71; social welfare 43, 69; urban 106–7 residents’ committees 115 residents’ groups 115 residualism: see welfare residualism restraint 132–4 revolving fund project 100 Riskin, C. 178 Robertson, A. 21 Robinson, R. 63 Rockefeller Foundation 33 Rose, R. 18 rural areas: communes 171–2; education 174; five guarantees’ programme 88–90; health care 57,174, 179; income 55, 77, 152, 155–6,163–4; inflation 62; pension schemes 91; relief 86–92; social welfare 1–4, 56, 85–6,100–2 rural/urban differences: consumer price index 143; elderly care 164–5; freedom 61; incomes 55, 77, 152; poverty 92; social elfare 100–4,145, 191, 192 sanatoria 81 savings, personal 8

236

Index school drop-outs 57; see also education Schurmann, F. 126, 169 Selden, M. 56, 60, 151 self-insurance 96 self-regeneration 45 self-reliance 42, 49, 54, 71, 130, 134, 189, 191 Shanghai: community services 118; public assistance scheme 113–4; social relief 184 shehui xing (socially-oriented civil affairs work) 128 shequ fuwu: see community services Shue, V. 26, 124, 169, 172 Sidel, R. and V.W. 5 skills training 83–4 Social Affairs Department 31–2 Social Affairs Ministry 38 social agencies, non-state 122 social care 22–3,35, 144, 147, 163, 189 social change 9–10, 104 social evils 112, 163 social insurance 7, 10, 59, 175–7,182–3 social policy ix-x, 31, 58–9,63 social relations, five affinities 24 social relief 42,44, 48, 130–1,184–5 social security 7–8, 40–3; costs 59; for elderly 164–5; mutual aid 123; peasants 179; reform 139, 181–3; Soviet Union 15; Yugoslavia 15 social stability 112, 129–30,148 social wage 168 social welfare ix, 1, 4–7; civil affairs departments 19, 38–43,104,127–31; Civil Affairs Ministry 1, 2, 3–4, 7, 60, 105–8; collectives 168,173–8,190; communist ideology 126–7; cultural factors 12–3, 18, 21, 190; deregulation 73; dualism 135–40; eligibility 136; entitlement through work 1, 2, 15, 133, 168, 190; family 2, 3, 18;

237

Index

238

fee-charging 43, 69,73, 196; funding 2, 57, 66–72, 173; geographical factors 168; ideology 12, 14–5; institutional 9, 26–33; journals/magazines 7; local community funding 68; Mao 5, 6, 49, 113; marginal groups 1–4; and marketization xi, xii, 1, 61, 130; as non-productive consumption 190; organization 21; politics 10, 11; privatization 17–8,63–74, 106, 144; rural 2–4, 56, 86,101–2; rural/urban differences 101–4,145, 191, 192; socialism ix-x, xi, 1, 13–8, 168; stigma 3, 16, 26, 136, 174; structural model 13–4; ‘three-no’ targets 42–3,48, 104, 154; universalism 17; urban 2, 3, 4–5, 104–; Western traditions 7–13, 21, 24, 62–4; work units 3, 34, 104, 152, 184; see also socialization of welfare; welfare pluralism; welfare residualism social welfare enterprises 64, 69–71,73, 109–10 social welfare homes 43, 69 social welfare institutions ix, 26–33,64, 105–9,136, 191–4 social welfare lottery 71, 123–4 social welfare policy 11, 14–5, 154 socialism: civil affairs 194–6; class conflict 35; employment 15; family 147–9,166–7; group orientation 34; and social welfare ix-ix, x, xi, 1, 13–8, 168; work 15 socialization of welfare 3–4, 62–73, 105–6,120, 143, 147, 166 Societies Registration Regulation 121, 135 SOEs (state-owned enterprises): closure/privatization 186–7; employee numbers 58; functions 180–1; health care 158; labour insurance 175, 180;

Index management 171, 181; social welfare provision 175–8,184; unemployment 58, 157; unprofitability 180,183–4 soldiers: conscription 46, 76, 80–1,83; death grants 76; demobilization 41, 47, 83; disabled 78–9,81; pay 80; preferential treatment programme 40–1; resettlement 41 Solinger, D.J. 57, 180 sons 23, 154; see also filial piety Soong Ching Ling Foundation 123 Soviet Union 13–5, 47, 132 special economic zones 58 special needs, community care 117 spiritual pollution 71, 163 staffing, social welfare institutions 107 state: administration 126; birth control policies 61, 160–1; family obligations 34, 150; family policies 150–3; grain prices 56; institutions 28–32; organization 126; political power 126; poverty relief 95–7; power dynamics 186; regulation, reduced 72–3; relief programmes 130–1; social security 15; social welfare provision 63–72, 138–40,168; surveillance 121 state agencies, Cultural Revolution 48–9 state aid 29–30,31–2,88 State Insolvency Law 180 state intervention 11, 59, 61 state-owned enterprises: see SOEs state-party fusion 126 stigma: charity 154; in Civil Affairs Ministry 53; social welfare recipients 3, 15, 26, 135, 174

239

Index street offices 116 structural model, social welfare 13–4 student protests 123, 129 subsidiarity 35 subsidies 80–1,139–40,177 subsistence farming 27 suicide 49 surveillance, state 120–1 Szalai, J. 16 Szelenyi, I. 15 Tang dynasty 29 Tao, J. 26 Taoism 24 tax exemptions, social welfare enterprises 109 technology, social change 9–10 territorial administration 39–40 Thatcher, Margaret x ‘three no’ targets 42–3,48, 104, 154 Tiananmen demonstration 123, 130 Titmuss, Richard ix, 7, 153 Townsend, P. 7 township formation 40 trade/craft guilds 32–3,35 trade unions 120 traditional values 22–6, 34–6, 149 training 46, 91 Tsu Yu-Yue 28, 29 unemployment: Civil Affairs Ministry 114; crisis 112, 113; family consequences 157; Great Leap Forward 48; hidden 157; job placement 84–5; loss of welfare benefits 158, 181; marketization 17; post Cultural Revolution 55; workshops 48 unemployment insurance 58, 182, 183–4 United Nations: UNDP, Poverty Alleviation Programme 99; UNFPA, revolving fund project 100; UNICEF, social development 100; Relief and Rehabilitation Administration 33; World Food Programme 100 universal employment 152

240

Index universalism 17 unregistered children 161–2 unrest 159, 193–4 urban dwellers: collectives 172–3; family production 151–3; freedom 61; income 55, 152, 157, 163–4; poverty 92, 114, 157; social welfare 1–2, 3, 4–5, 104; socialization of economy 170; state intervention 59; see also rural/urban differences urban migration 2–3, 61, 112, 157 urban reforms 57, 116 urban relief 45, 112–5 US, social welfare 12–3, 21 utilitarian familism xi, 147,155 vagrants 43, 44, 46, 62, 112 values: and conventions 13; ecological 25–6; family 18, 22; religious 25; traditional 22–6, 34–6 veteran institutions 81–2 veterans: aid 136; associations 136; development aid 83; disabled 46; food shortage 94; resettlement 83–5; rural 47 village communities, responsibilities 28, 179 voluntary agencies 3–4, 32–4,74, 120–2 wages 59, 78, 168; see also income Walder, A. 5, 172 Wang Gungwu 26, 27 wealth distribution xi; see also income distribution welfare: see social welfare welfare pluralism xi, 9, 16, 18, 73–4,168; see also social welfare

241

Index

242

welfare production enterprises 47, 105 welfare residualism 9, 16–20, 49–54, 147, 189, 190–1; see also social welfare welfare states 7, 168 Wenxuan 129 Western social welfare 7, 35–6,135 Whyte, M.K. 5, 28, 49, 170, 174 Wilensky, H.L. 9–10, 12, 147 Womack, B. 173 women: abducted 112, 162; citizenship 31; as daughters 23, 154; maternity insurance 182; paid/unpaid work 99, 104, 153; prostitution 45, 112, 162 Women of China 148 women’s federation 120 women’s groups 99 Wong, C. 55 Wong, L. 4, 5, 144, 155, 173 work, paid/unpaid 104; see also employment work contracts 58, 158, 180 work ethic 15, 135, 145 work points 173 work therapy station 117 work unit socialism 172 work units: demobilized soldiers 41; employees’ private lives 152–3; family support 154; mass organizations 120; social costs 59; social welfare 3, 34, 104, 152, 184; see also danwei workers: disabled 110, 111; relocated 99; work units’ authority 152–3 workfare 135 workshops for disabled people 91 World Bank 98, 100 xia gang (hidden unemployed) 157 xiao (filial piety) 23,144, 150 Xinjian Women’s Income Generating Project 99

Index Yang, Lien-sheng 23 YMCA 33 Yugoslavia 15 YWCA 33 Zhang Dejiang 63 Zhang Pu, community care 116 Zhang Qiqun 32 Zhi Ling School for the Mentally Handicapped 122 Zhou dynasty 29 Zhou Enlai 47 Zhu De 38 Zhu Ling 94, 96 Zhu Qingfang 114

243

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